Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs
by Matt Silver 3k
Summary: To avoid the prosecution of his friends in the days following the Voldemort war, Harry Potter signed a contract in blood. Years later, Harry deals with a wizard ritualistically murdering Muggles, periodic contract renewals and his own relationships. HPNT.
1. Chapter One: Eight

Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. This fanfiction is a non-profit thing written for enjoyment of myself and my readers.

Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs.

Written by Matt Silver

Pre-Story Note: The backstory for this story is an alternate take on the war after Snape killed Dumbledore. It was darker and grittier and there were no Deathly Hallows to be seen (though Harry was a Horcrux and still killed Voldemort somehow. It's not important to this story). Just roll with it - the relevant background bits are revealed over the course of the story.

..::..-.-..::..

Chapter One: Eight.

..::..-.-..::..

_November 7th, 2001: The Eighth _

"I don't get it. It's just a dead Muggle."

"A very astute observation, Auror Dover. Potter, do you care to add to your partner's assessment?"

Blood. I'm seeing a cool lake in a dry desert, though the logical part of me sees the small pool on the cold warehouse floor. The crimson liquid stains the ground, it stains the dead Muggle and it's staining the bottom of Dover's left boot as he carelessly traipses all over the crime scene. My fellow Aurors and DMLE Enforcers are a lot more careful around the blood and the body, taking photographs and jotting down notes. But all I can see is the blood.

I don't mean to wax poetic on it, but the unhealthy fascination with an essential bodily fluid is a very substantial indication that it's close to contract renewal. A contract paid in blood and tied to my own - seems fitting that one of the signs of an approaching renewal involves blood, or anything crimson red and liquid-y. A few renewals ago I was reminded by the tomato sauce on my shepherd's pie. Tasty and helpful.

"Harry?" Auror Mackenzie Dover, having finished stepping in our victim's blood, tapped me on the shoulder. "Are you here with us?"

"I'm fine," I said automatically. "Just tired." Which was true. The post-Voldemort workload in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Magical Law Enforcement may've ended years back, but there was always a dozen law-breaking wizards behind every dustbin, and we were usually short-staffed to boot.

I cleared my throat and shook the cold off my skin. I hadn't noticed the autumn chill London carried this time of year, as I was rather too busy staring at the blood. All red and-

I cleared my throat again and pointedly ignored the blood.

"Is this the handiwork of Scotland Yard's newest serial murderer?" I asked, addressing my immediate superior on the scene, Terry Boot. Terry was one of a few wizards who had jumped straight into a post-Voldemort Auror Office that was my age, and he and I were the only ones to stick around when things went from exciting Death Eater duels to paperwork and tedium.

"Scotland Yard's what?" Dover chortled. "Captain?"

Boot nodded to me and narrowed his sole eye at Dover. The black eyepatch covering his other eye barely crinkled, but the one-eye Boot Glare O' Doom was still rather intimidating. "Have you not been reading the Muggle newspapers as instructed, Auror Dover?"

"I've been busy," Dover said flippantly.

Boot sighed a long-suffering sigh, and I resisted in joining him. "Scotland Yard have identified a string of murders from Fulham to Camden as all being the work of whom _The Times_ are calling 'The Sorcerer'. All seven previous victims were stabbed in the upper chest area. It is unknown where they were murdered, but each of the bodies were moved to several abandoned areas similar to this warehouse."

I picked up Boot's explanation before Dover could open his mouth. "They've dubbed him 'The Sorcerer' because there is no possible Muggle way that the bodies could've appeared where they did, given that the surrounding areas were completely untouched, and had been for a noticeable time."

Boot consulted his notes, ever-present in his spindly fingers. "The bodies were found with a small black button attached somewhere on their person. The Muggles thought it to be an innocuous calling card. We know them better as Portkeys."

"Some wizard killing Muggles and Portkeying their bodies away from the actual crime scene?" Dover surmised. "Okay... So why did you owl us? And you said there were seven victims?"

"This is indeed the eighth," Boot said with a sharp nod and a gesture to the corpse. I started to approach the dead man, ignoring the blood's 'come hither' aspect it was projecting to my magically muddled mind.

"So why didn't those Muggle twats ask for our help earlier? And again, why drag us out here?"

"Who was he?" I spoke up, kneeling down to examine the corpse more closely. Yep, still a corpse with a vicious stab wound in the chest, as if someone had punched a large hole in him. He was starting to smell too, an unpleasant odour mixing in with the cold blistering my nostrils. Ignoring that, there was something familiar about the dead man on the ground.

"I'm sorry?" Dover asked, stopping his tirade about Muggle 'please-men' and their general incompetence.

"I'm asking who he is. Was," I repeated clearly. I knew Dover had a blank look on his face, even without turning, so I elaborated. "Scotland Yard keeps a constant dialogue with the Auror Office. They occasionally find cases that seem to be a bit beyond them and their liaisons pawn them off on us. That's normal. This appears to be the latest in a string of mysterious murders, and I have no doubt our Muggle friends would've tried to get us to come in and work on it beforehand, maybe three bodies ago. But we've been busy lately. Still are, too. So, I'm wondering who this man is and what importance he has for Robards to pay enough attention and drag us out here this morning. Captain?"

Before Boot could answer, Dover snorted. "Importance? He's a Muggle."

"He's also the brother-in-law of the head of the Department of Sports and Games, Jason Cole," Boot said stonily. "As soon as Mr Robert Goren here was identified and his name and photograph sent to us an hour ago, no doubt Head Auror Robards had a moment of recognition."

I nodded in agreement. Robards, Boot, Tonks and myself were all present at the wedding of Jason Cole and his Muggle bride Sylvia Goren just last year. I distinctly remembered having to erase Robert's memory after he got a little too fresh with a hex-happy Tonks, thereby breaking the Muggle-only spirit that the wedding was supposed to carry. To this day, I still hadn't figured out where Tonks had hid her wand while wearing that dress.

I stood up and took a step back from the body of Robert Goren. "Okay, so we have the Muggle relation of a top Ministry bloke dead here, and politically it would be a good thing for Robards to nip this killer in the bud, coming out the other side all smiles. So they bring some Aurors to investigate instead of any scrubs from the DMLE Enforcer Squad." To my side, Dover chuckled a bit at my assessment. "Okay, I guess I'm intrigued. Have our friends at Scotland Yard send me over the files on the previous victims, and I'll get right on investigating this area some more."

I could almost feel Boot's mood change from reproachful to approving within a sentence or two. Reproachful and all frowns at my audacity in questioning Head Auror Robards's politicking, and approving and all slightly less frowny-frowns at my initiative and false go-getter attitude. Boot liked initiative.

Dover, on the other hand, did not. He groaned loudly. "Christ I was hoping to take the weekend off for a change. Are we taking the body or are the Muggles dealing with it?"

"Our Cutters will be doing the autopsy first," said Boot. "The proper parties have been owled."

Dover yawned uninterestingly. "What about the press? Our press, I mean."

"Best to keep them out of this," I replied. "I'm guessing Robards would want them to know about the identity of this body only after this killer's been taken care of. If we jumped the gun ahead of time and spent longer than expected finding this killer, it would be detrimental to Robards's image. Am I right, Captain?"

That was just the party line. I just really didn't like dealing with the press in any capacity.

"You are correct."

Dover suddenly grabbed a hold of my shoulders, steering me around to face towards the entrance of the dilapidated warehouse. "I repeat: what about the press?"

"_Daily Prophet _reporter Maximillian Jensen and his assistant, Arcturus Fallon," Boot said automatically. The man was seriously a walking repository of random knowledge, hence why he was above me in the ranks despite the age difference being a month. Ambition, knowledge and tedious note taking. The bitchin' eyepatch probably scared off any competitors as well.

"Yes thank you, I know who they are," I said somewhat snappishly. The _Daily Prophet's _very own paid vultures. Ugh. "Dover, go deal with them, and keep your mouth shut."

"What, me?" Dover said airily. "Potter, the press is your area of expertise, not mine. I'm afraid I might just let slip the identity of Mr Grant here."

"Goren," Boot corrected.

"Whatever."

I, meanwhile, gave Dover a patented death glare I'd been working on since we'd been assigned as partners. Unfortunately, the effect was lost on my fellow Auror, appearing ever the saint with that stupid grin on his face. I think the tiredness in my features dispelled the illusion of fear.

"And I may just let it slip to Robards in your next review how a pay cut would work wonders for your character," I told Dover harshly. He rolled his eyes in response, motioning for me to head towards the habitual journalism duo. Sighing, I shuffled around the body, wove my way past a few stray Aurors, twice glancing back at the small pool of blood that had caught my attention earlier. That time of the season, I suppose.

"Ahh, Mr Potter," Jensen said pleasantly. He was rather a nondescript man, except for that one glaring thing. His perpetually mute and sallow friend Fallon said nothing, for a change. Poor guy had probably swallowed too much of the metaphorical slime issuing forth from Jensen's mouth, forever damaging his voicebox. "How would my favourite Auror like to comment on this mysterious death?"

"Mr Jensen, you appear awfully transparent today," I said with a false smile. "What, perchance, would make such a fine specimen of a living wizard such as yourself believe that this death has any mystery to it?"

Jensen waggled a pearly-white finger at me, chuckling. "Mr Potter, you needn't hedge the morning away. I'm simply assuming that the presence of yourself and the other fine young witches and wizards of the DMLE in such a Muggle area might be interesting enough for an article or two. What do you say?"

"Have you taken any pictures?"

"Unlikely, given my ghostly disposition," Jensen said lightly.

"I wasn't talking to you, Mr Jensen." I pointed a finger at his mute assistant who doubled as a photographer. Both ghost and human could spot the wand-tip pointing out of my wrist holster as I gestured to the big camera hanging from Fallon's neck. "Mr Fallon?"

The mute man shook his head in negative. Just to be sure, I released my wand with a flick of the wrist, pointed it at the camera and deftly floated it off its position around Fallon's neck and into my hands. I checked the film with tired eyes and a few revealing spells. I came up empty.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Fallon," I said, handing the camera back. I turned to Jensen. "At this juncture, Mr Jensen, I am invoking the binding spells placed on you and requesting that you leave the premises. I remind you that this is a Muggle neighbourhood-"

"I'd look no less out of place then anything else, given that I'm invisible to them," Jensen said. "In fact, you'd be the crazy one talking to thin air if Fallon weren't here beside me."

I didn't let him slow down my invocation. "I am now going to bind you in accordance to the laws set up especially for ghosts in sensitive positions such as yourself. The standard parameters apply, so if you would please repeat it aloud for the purposes of the verbal binding?"

Ghosts were basically imprints, stranded behind by their own anchors and unable to move on by themselves. We can exorcise them into not having a form as such, but they'll always exist as imprints even if they can't communicate with us in the current dimension. Some ghosts get bored - Jensen was one of them. His aspirations to be a super sleuth reporter were no doubt hampered by the multitude of bindings placed on him to prevent him from leaking Ministry secrets to the world. Combine that with the various wards and protections surrounding places of importance, and the super sleuth ghostly reporter was basically a normal journalist without the ability to write up his own articles.

Jensen's voice was droning and automatic, having done this a few million times before. "I will not be able to communicate the events witnessed today in any form or fashion unless you or your superiors want me to. Mr Fallon will be the witness of the binding and will not be able to communicate anything of a similar nature to what I am not to communicate. Overcoming the binding in any form is an immediate and punishable offence to be taken up with the proper courts."

"The binding will be revoked when myself of my superiors wish it to be," I said. "You have acknowledged the terms and conditions, and you must now follow them in three, two and one." I swept my wand in an arc and muttered a quick incantation, invoking the binding spell. A wave of magic, invisible to the naked eye but with a feeling of stuffy warmth, swept over the three of us.

"So mote it be," Jensen murmured.

"Thank you for your time, Mr Jensen," I said, re-holstering my wand.

Jensen nodded, resigned yet affable as always. "As you wish, Mr Potter. I sure do hope you are the one to give me the full scoop when the binding is released this time."

"Me too," I said sarcastically. "You have ten seconds to leave, Mr Jensen. Mr Fallon, if you would please follow out of courtesy, that would be sporting."

Jensen faded into nothingness silently while Fallon Apparated away with a loud crack. Rubbing my head as the dull pounding sensation from earlier returned in full force, I made my way back to Boot and Dover, both standing over where Mr Goren's body was minutes ago. He was now most likely being transported for an autopsy, the post-mortem 'Cutters' taking him away while I was dealing with Jensen.

Boot was standing rigidly in the same spot that I had left him in, while Dover was sluggishly circling the area, wand out but no spells being cast.

"Anything new?" I asked redundantly. If there was something new, I'm sure Boot would be taking notes and Dover wouldn't look so bored.

"There are no new developments," Boot informed. "The body has been moved and the inert Portkey used to transport it here is being catalogued as evidence. It will be examined as soon as the proper paperwork has been filled out."

Business as usual, then. "We have the other dead Portkeys coming with the files on our previous victims?"

"Yes."

"What about other tracks or any kind?"

"No sign of anything," Dover reported. "Doubt there would be. This place has been abandoned for years now. Since our Muggle-killing wizard has Portkeys, he doesn't need to even be in London to get the bodies here."

It took about ten minutes to search the entire warehouse myself for any small clue. The other Aurors and Enforcers were starting to clear out, and with them went the Muggle policemen and the small crowd that had gathered outside of the crime scene perimeter, no doubt curious about the attention their neighbourhood's abandoned warehouse was getting. Myself, Boot and Dover were the last ones to pack it in, at my behest.

"Yeah, I've got all I can here," I announced. Dover murmured something that sounded like a "finally" and Boot just nodded sharply, jotting something down on his notes.

"The crime scene has been extensively photographed, the body moved and those present have clear memories of the scene for later Pensieve study?"

I nodded, as did Dover. Boot narrowed his eyes at the other, less reliable, Auror in the immediate vicinity. "Auror Dover, are your memories clear enough for later study?"

"Couple of cobwebs, but I doubt there's anything important there," Dover said disarmingly. Sometimes we would watch a memory and literal cobwebs would appear to obfuscate the experience. My focus was a little off too, so I wouldn't be letting anybody else see my replayed memories. I'd imagine the fact that everything was carrying a bluish hue and the pool of Goren's blood was flashing like a strobe light might raise certain alarms for those watching.

"We're all good, Captain. Stop fussing." I whipped my wand out and pointed it at the pool o' blood. There was a moment there when the incantation for the Scouring Spell didn't issue forth from my lips. I remained a little too focused on the bloody pool - removing it just didn't feel like the right thing to do. Shaking off the feeling and steeling myself, I spoke the spell aloud, "_Scourgify!" _

Dover looked relieved. "And we're out of here. Great. It's cold."

"Oh, and I'm going to have to take tonight off, Captain," I remarked, not tearing my eyes away as the blood slowly dissolved into the ground. The flashing strobe light in my mind's eye subdued pitifully. "Prior engagement. Dover's covering me."

"I am?" Dover exclaimed. Boot didn't say a thing and Apparated away. Dover huffed and followed, leaving me alone staring at the blood-free ground.

Plans for the day? Work on this new investigation in the morning, lunch with an old friend, an afternoon of more work, a light dinner and a spot of murder to finish off the night. The dull headache, the fascination with blood, the bluish hue and the uneasy feeling that everything felt less maintained and more real all meant one thing: contract renewal was upon me. I had about a week left but I didn't want to put it off. Putting it off meant a few more nasty side effects, and since I had my target where I wanted him, renewal would go down easily before midnight tonight.

His name was Christian Selwyn. A Death Eater who escaped a stint in Azkaban twice after both of Voldemort's downfalls, of who I doubted he would be missed. When Verdant Greengrass, another former Death Eater, was found dead three months ago and his son-in-law the responsible party, nobody had batted an eye. I was getting good at making sure nobody looked too closely into the dead men left behind after a contract renewal.

If I wanted to justify it, I could say that contract renewal has its perks. Doing the world a favour by ridding it of those that shouldn't continue living because of their former devotion to Voldemort, and fulfilling my own needs for constant renewal and continued contractual stability.

Perks. Of course.

..::..-.-..::..

_Hours Later: Lunches_

The Ministry of Magic had been through the ringer since its halcyon days of trying to get me expelled from Hogwarts. Scrimgeour's brief tenure as Minister added maybe two or three new Aurors to the force, jailed twenty innocent wizards in Azkaban and spent a year falsely reassuring the world that everything was just peachy keen. Voldemort's ownership of the place gutted the Department of Mysteries, flayed the more Muggle-friendly departments, and added the three Death Eaters in Britain that weren't already working for the Ministry to the payroll. Kingsley Shacklebolt's added such stellar Aurors such as myself, Terry, and Ron there for a few months, to the DMLE. After the Ministry Fire of December '98 and Kingsley's death, some twat who seemed a little too attached to his satin fez held the position of Minister for about a week before I intervened and got Dirk Cresswell into the top job.

I guess I could say the Ministry's changes have been for the better. Sure there were still corrupt bastards walking the halls and the occasional incident of gold passing hands and criminals walking free, but I wouldn't be working here if I still thought it was the Fudge/Scrimgeour/Voldemort days. Umbridge's brutal murder during the war probably helped things along in that regard.

I spent most of my days and nights on the second floor, owned entirely by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The lowest echelon workers on the DMLE food chain were on the Magical Law Enforcement Squad - Enforcers, as they were called. The Hit Wizards took up a few offices of their own, and I can safely call them the most competent group in the entire office. The Auror Office was a bit hit-and-miss. Robards was a political leech who controlled the place as if each Auror was a vehicle for his election to Minister next year. As such, Dover and myself had got shafted to this pedestrian case, these 'Sorcerer' murders, a case that would usually be handled by Enforcers unless some very Dark Magic was afoot.

I didn't mind, actually. I figured we'd find a common link between the victims, the Cutters dealing with Mr Goren's body would find something magical or odd about the killings, and we'd do the detective thing and catch a two-bit Muggle-killing tosser in his evil lair before he'd kill again. Maybe Robards would give us a pay raise if we managed to make him look good.

However, the morning passed and the files we combed over were typed in an annoyingly fine print. I was also rather distracted, while Dover was just being lazy.

"What I don't get," Dover started, "is why would he leave the bodies out like that? I mean, I'd understand if this was a pureblood nutter proving to the world that he killed a few Muggles, but I'd expect something more... arty."

"Arty," I said distractedly, feigning interest while scouring victim number one's file again. Muggle, stabbed in the chest. No obvious relation to any of the succeeding victims.

Dover abandoned all pretence of working and tossed a file across the way to his cubicle. "Hey, remember those kids we arrested about a year back?"

"Four teenagers trying to start their own cult where killing and displaying dead Muggles was the entrance fee? I vaguely recall it." Three Muggles had died in that little debacle, and that they were just stupid kids helped us prevent a fourth murder.

"Okay, how about the witch who tried to polyjuice herself into a bear and mauled those campers in her half-bear, half-witch state?"

I cracked a smile. Not at the mental image of a few disembowelled campers, but at what Dover was attempting to do. He was an Auror for a reason - he had noticed my recent less-than-charitable behaviour this close to contract renewal, and had deigned to play up his annoyingly puppy-dog optimism about corpses in an attempt to cheer me up. Poor guy's initial tenure as an Auror was a month of Scrimgeour followed by a year of Voldemort, so he had his reasons for being jaded enough to revert to excessive and sometimes fake optimism and chronic laziness.

"Lunch is in half an hour..." he said nonchalantly. I said nothing, merely nodding towards the piles of files. "Come on, Harry! This is Enforcer work. We're more specialised than this! Can't we just pawn it off and go home for the day?"

Really fucking tempting for him, no doubt, and I could almost agree. Boring Auror work was usually a good distraction for a full day. I had planned to be mulling over boring Auror work during my awkward lunch appointment. I had planned to ignore the bluish tinge reality itself carried and the craving for tomato soup until I could get off work and renew my contract.

Unfortunately, my plan to be distracted by work and ignore the renewal was being overtaken by me being distracted by renewal so much it caused me ignore my work. Sighing, I abandoned my own file, chucking it on my little desk haphazardly.

"We're not pawning it off, though. Be back for the afternoon," I said sternly.

Dover grinned. "You don't want to bust out with me? We can go to that place with the dancers and the good fish."

I shook my head. "I've got a lunch date, so no topless birds today. Maybe another time."

Dover nodded, fastened his cloak around his shoulders and waltzed out of the near-empty office space. That Aurors were such specialists in matters of combat and investigation of Dark wizardry that high demand was always a factor, all over the world. Half our office was off curbing a goblin rebellion in South America, hence the empty cubicles. The usually ever-watchful Boot was in Floo Call for another hour or so, so escaping without the judgement of his wicked eyepatch wasn't a problem.

As usual, or what had been usual since the incident with the lifts last year, I took the stairs down to the Atrium. On a normal day, the large chamber was always packed full of commuting wizards and witches, and today was still just a normal Ministry day. I looked over the crowd and spotted the sole bright pink spot to the usually dull greys and blacks. Pink usually meant Tonks.

We bumped into each other about halfway through the crowd. Tonks wasn't exactly tall nor short, but was lanky and had a well-kept athletic build. Her Metamorph talents extended to shaping her body how she wanted it, but keeping the default Tonks was usually easier, and most effort went towards a variety of eclectic hair styles. Her heart-shaped face and sparkling eyes stayed consistent too, and I'd swear that she had barely aged since we'd first met.

I pointed at her hair by way of greeting. "What's with the yellow?"

"The yellow?" she asked, as if remembering that it was actually there. With a scrunch of her nose, the yellow spot on the top of her head was gone, replaced by her default pink. She grinned and started chattering immediately. "I was running a drill with the trainees. Bet them a week of my pay that they couldn't hit me twice with balls of conjured paint through a cloud of smoke." Her grin widened. "I got hit about six times but Hayden cleaned most of it off by the time the smoke cleared. I shifted this spot there, though. Make the poor kids feel a little less worthless."

I grinned back. "Sounds like fun."

"A blast!" she agreed. "You heading to lunch?"

"Got an appointment and everything."

She raised an eyebrow. "Big scary appointment? Important and time sensitive?"

I, being master Auror that I am, caught on quickly to the fact that she was on lunch break too. Hell, I always loved lunch with someone not named Remus Lupin. Plus, with Dover cajoling me out of my cubicle early, I did have some free time. "I can spare half an hour, and I'm running on fumes enough for two lunches. Leaky?"

"Leaky Cauldron it is." She grinned again, hooking her arm in mine and half-dragging me to a nearby Floo, laughing as I accidentally knocked over an elder gentleman along the way.

"Your trainees must love you," I said dryly, once we had emerged through the emerald green flames at the Leaky Cauldron. I flicked my wand out and removed the excess soot the trip had bestowed upon me. "I feel sorry for Hayden too."

"The trainees do love me," she replied, ignoring my sarcasm. No mention of her co-instructor Hayden Blake, a more-experienced and by-the-book type that she had been whittling down for the purpose of entertainment since she had started teaching baby Aurors three years ago. She was also readily available for tutoring sessions for me too, as my quick entry into the Auror Office skipped some helpful stuff the war hadn't taught me, and I was still occasionally running to my best friend for help.

We picked up some food and two butterbeers, scoring an empty booth and settling into easy conversation.

"Whatcha been up to today?" she asked, grabbing a handful on hot chips to munch on. "Robards still riding you?"

I nodded. "Of course. His newest bullshit? New case. The Muggles at Scotland Yard can probably stop sending angry letters to Williamson now - we're all on top of things and doing the Sorcerer."

She snickered a little at my poor wording. "I'll admit to not having read up on any Muggle stuff lately. Too depressing." We both were quiet for a moment. It was a tumultuous season, for both Muggles and wizards. "Is it interesting? The case, I mean."

"The four hours so far? I think I can sum it up as Robards and Boot being petty. Times like this I wish I hadn't pissed off our bear of a Head Auror and his personal pirate toady."

We both shared a laugh. "You could've just run off to the jungles with the rest of the office," Tonks said.

"And not be here for two months?" I said, eyes hardening. "Tonks, I'm not pissing off in the middle of November..."

She knew why. Height of Voldemort war, this time four years ago - he had the Ministry and I had a tent - and her parents were both killed. Even when Voldemort had been killed and the Death Eaters being mostly taken care of seven months later, Tonks had declined active service in the Auror field, opting for an instructor position. She, by her own reasoning, didn't really 'feel' the field anymore, given that the war had proved that the Ministry's corruption meant that the Death Eaters had advantage enough to be a problem and kill her parents in the first place. I didn't blame nor judge her for that, and I was happy she was passing on her knowledge to the next generations of Auror trainees. It was good for her to have accomplishments marred with positivity.

"Thanks Harry," she said honestly. "Means a lot."

"Anytime."

And that was true. Ron and Hermione were still great friends - Ron was busy with Quidditch and Hermione was busy getting further magical education in France - but I quite liked how close Tonks and I had become. It started as some good ol' easy joking in the pre-Sirius' death days, some light bonding post-Sirius, some long chats post-Ted and Andromeda, and working within the same proximity at the Ministry. It had all contributed to the forging of a solid friendship.

I could also take credit for her hair, strange as it sounds. Tonks usually shifted her hair to suit her mood, and her depression during and immediately after the war was marred with pale, lank and mousy hair, the pink and spunky look showing up rarely if ever. The bright and long hair started becoming a permanent fixture when I had personally vouched for it about two years back, and she had fun with braids and ponytails that I would pretend to dislike so she'd keep them around more often to annoy me.

Hair was good, I decided. Hair, especially Tonks's, was exciting and distracting. Distracting from my actual lunch appointment and my later contract renewal... Oh yeah, still had that whole business to take-

"You all right, Harry?" Tonks asked curiously, noticing my darkening expression.

"Meeting with an old friend turned reluctant acquaintance in twenty minutes," I said shortly. "Let's ignore that unpleasantness and move on. That sound good?"

She nodded, took a swig of her butterbeer, and launched into a tale from her work. Lunch didn't turn out so bad after all.

My first one, anyway.

My second one started with me examining Remus Lupin's hair. It was grey and depressing. The sky outside the small Muggle cafe was more grey and dreary. The swill the serving lady had called tea was just a mysterious grey colour that I was afraid to drink too much of.

Poor Remus Lupin. The werewolf thing nearly all his life was bad enough, but the constant losses throughout both wars and total compromise of his morals while infiltrating Greyback's clan for almost a year and a half had turned him into a more pitiful and broken man than usual. Threadbare robes replaced with threadbare Muggle clothes. His hair was all grey and his face lined and scarred noticeably more than when we had first met.

"You not using the gold I'm getting you?" I asked bluntly, pointing to a largest hole in his tweed jacket.

He chuckled, though his eyes told me that there was no humour to it. "I've been sending most of it overseas, anonymously of course. A brilliant wizard in Stockholm is heading towards a cure-"

A snort escaped me. "And before that there was a witch in France and before that there was a wizard in New Zealand and before that there was a Muggle/wizard research group off the coast of America."

He took a measured sip of his tea. "A man's allowed to have hope, Harry. I would have an additional hope that you would be more supportive."

I bit my tongue so as not to blurt out that his idea of supporting me seemed to be lacking too. Sirius had made it clear to me back when he was alive - the Marauders took care of their own family. With everybody else in that family dead or imprisoned after Voldemort's first death, Remus chose to forget that when it came to me. Ancient history, but people still dealt with the consequences of choices chosen decades ago.

Instead, I spoke carefully. "It's your gold. I suppose if one day that Swede comes up with the cure, I'll be happy to eat my words as you prance around all human-like on the full moon."

He chuckled again, a little more genuine this time. "Here's hoping."

We were quiet for a moment. That wasn't good. Quiet and a lack of conversation trail meant that Remus Lupin was going to ask one thing. He always did.

"How's Nymphadora?"

I considered taking a sip of the tasteless drink in front of me, as if considering the question. I also considered getting a nearby pen and explaining with diagrams that maybe he should let that whole thing drop. But I didn't. I think it might've been residual guilt or some sort of post-Sirius thing where I didn't want to alienate anyone that was close to my parents. A twenty-one year-old orphan was no different than his eleven year-old counterpart sometimes.

"Tonks is fine," I said. "The anniversary is coming up, but I'll be there for her."

"Good." Remus nodded, probably trying to convince himself. "That's good."

More silence. Apparating away was sounding like a good idea at the moment, Muggle-filled cafe or no.

"She knows I was sorry, right?" Remus said suddenly. Merlin on a pogo stick...

"She knows that you're dead," I said bluntly. "That you ran away and stayed away, and that you died while working valiantly as a spy with the werewolf population of England. That's what everybody else knows. I know that you're alive, you've decided to hide yourself away for the rest of your life, and you occasionally invite me to lunch so I can give you gold that I inherited from you after you 'died' and Wolfsbane so you don't kill more people as a wolf."

"It would have never worked out with her-"

"True, because you fucking ran away instead of at least lying to her for a few weeks before breaking her heart. Not even when her parents got killed and all she had was a series of depressing hair styles and a war to fight, you didn't return and at least be there as a friend or fuck buddy."

"There was never anything physical there," he admitted. "She was too young..."

"And you were too old, and there was a war going on, and you're now a monster that butchered children while working for Greyback." I had heard it all before, hence the awkwardness. "You could've easily avoided that whole mess."

He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but I cut him off. "I have to get back to work, Remus. So here's what you need to know: I don't want you to torture yourself and me over piss-poor tea. Tonks is a big girl, and she's taking care of herself just fine these days. You've got your Wolfsbane until after the next full moon cycle, and I'll bring you some more gold as soon we can set something up for next time."

He finished off his tea and let out a disgusted noise. "I have better tea at my place," he offered. I affixed a blank look on my face and he took it in. "Maybe next time."

"Maybe." I threw him a tight smile, nodded, and exited the cafe. A brisk walk to a nearby alleyway later, I Apparated back to the Ministry. The sudden shift from outside cold to inside warmth threw me a bit. It had been years since I'd faked his death, but my friendship with Remus Lupin had stayed on a constant downward slope as he continued on as he did - torturing himself, sequestering himself with the Muggles and refusing constant contact with anyone but me.

Mainly, I think I was disgusted with him because he ran away. Made himself into a monster while stuck with Greyback for almost two years, all because he ran away. I don't run away anymore. When I had to make a big choice, I chose to sign a contract in blood. I chose to renew the contract with the blood of others, and I'm going to stick by that choice for as long as it takes.

Running away was not how to go about things.

_..::..-.-..::.._

_That Night: The Selwyn Renewal_

The afternoon hours whittled away easily enough. To the general amusement of the office, Boot had given Dover a dressing down when the latter had arrived back from lunch two hours late. The case was starting to become frustrating in its bland yet oddly random nature. Having ruled out that the victims were related at all beyond their lack of magic in their natures, we and the Cutter behind Mr Goren's autopsy spent a few hours examining the knife wound, trying to figure out if a specific type of knife would've been used on each victim. Eventually, coming up empty after twelve hours since getting the investigation, we called it a night, Dover heading off to the pub and me heading 'home' for some 'rest'.

I Apparated across the street of Selwyn's favourite hangout. I had been following the man sporadically for about two months now, establishing his habitual patterns. He was leaving his modest mansion less and less as the weather got colder, preferring to have house elves do most of his busywork. I guessed he was getting sicker as the Autumn died down, but he was never sick enough to not find time for a drink with an old friend or two every Friday, a meeting with his solicitor on Sunday afternoon to check on his overseas business acquisitions, and the Wednesday evening visit to his favourite whorehouse.

The place was wizard-owned, but mostly kept Muggle girls. They were usually either tourists or kidnapped rich girls that the wizards in charge could hold hostage and have abused while they finagled cash from their parents. Apart from a few choice employees, I doubted the Ministry really knew about the place enough to have it shut down and its patrons all arrested and castrated.

Hell, I had only found out about the place because my previous kill, Lord Verdant Greengrass, was a regular. The only people who could know the true nature of the house were those with specific invitations to the place - not quite a Fidellius Charm, as the place had Muggle customers too and no Muggle could get through a Fidellius, invitation or no. Some post-renewal snooping had found me the invitation that Verdant used, and it was still valid even after the man died. I caught onto Selwyn's habits here soon after, and my plan came to fruition.

I entered the house with some minor glamour charms on my face, though I found out that was pretty unnecessary when a small curtained room before the reception area had a collection of garish face masks for customer use. Putting one on felt rather silly, like I was attending a masquerade with prostitution involved. But I did, casually waltzing up to the reception desk in the next room like I did this sort of thing every night.

The plump girl manning the front desk plastered a fake smile on her face when I approached. "Welcome. May I see your invitation?"

Muggle, I figured. Having the invitation meant I could enter the whorehouse in the first place, but she just thought there was no magic afoot and the invitation was just a piece of signed paper.

I handed it over, and she scanned it, nodding. "Welcome back, Lord Greengrass. Would you like your regular room? Shall I inform the Mistress of Pain you are expecting her?"

"Actually..." I flicked my wand at her. "_Imperio. _How about you tell me where Mr Selwyn is?"

"Room thirty-four, on the second floor," she said automatically. "Waitin' for Honeybee to finish off Mr Lord on the third floor."

"Are the rooms nearest to Mr Selwyn's occupied?" I coaxed.

Her unfocused eyes checked a small register in front of her. "None in that area are being used at the moment."

"Very well. Miss, when I snap my fingers-" And remove the spell, I added silently, "- you will forget that I was here. No one wanted to know where Selwyn was tonight. In fact, you should quit this crappy job and go back to school or something. Do you understand?"

She nodded. Good.

After lifting the spell, I headed up a nearby staircase instead of using the service lift, somewhat disturbed by the elegance of the decor along the way. For a whorehouse, it was all very well furnished, but if the girl at reception was any indication, perhaps all the money should've gone towards keeping prettier women on staff.

Ridding the thought by smacking the side of my head, I made my way to the second floor. I made use of a Disillusionment Charm as I skulked the brightly-lit halls, studiously ignoring the colourful noises coming from the rooms I passed. Eventually, I arrived at a small cluster of rooms, numbered thirty to thirty-six. Selwyn's was smack dab in the middle, and I could only hear his light coughing through the wall.

I took a knee and tapped the walls outside his room with my wand, trying to detect any rudimentary wards the man had put up for his privacy. I figured that he was arrogant enough to not bother, and I was right. He coughed again - no Silencing Ward, obviously.

I was able to get Selwyn's unlocked door open easily, and the elegance of the place screamed to me as the new and polished door opened without a creak. I rolled my eyes and tiptoed into the room, wand raised and ready. I heard Selwyn start another coughing fit.

I walked into a large living room area, complete with some magazines and a bar for some pre-show warming up for the customers. A large red couch took up the centre of the room in front of a roaring fireplace. Only one closed door stood to my left - a bedroom, I gathered, and Selwyn's coughs clued me in to him being inside. I cautiously made my way to the bedroom door - post-war Death Eaters had a paranoid streak a mile wide, and I knew Selwyn would be a slippery customer to kill if I spooked him early.

Plan? Blow the door open, go wands-a-blazing and decapitate him. I'd only have a minute at best to secure his blood for the contract renewal. This sort of magic was finicky.

I very consciously heard my own footstep beneath me, and I grimaced. Yeah, when I'm stupid enough to forget the Silencing Charm on my shoes, my plans usually end up awry. Maybe Selwyn hadn't heard it...

I had no doubt that he heard it when the door blew open before I could wave my wand, something sharp and very spear-like barrelling through the splintered wood. The spear, conjured no doubt, met my lower leg before I could banish it, the tip penetrating right through my skin, smashing through leg muscle and bone like it was paper. Whatever kinetic force Selwyn had put behind the harpoon's banishment, it allowed the harpoon to go all the way through to the other side and land uselessly behind me. My leg exploded in pain and my brain barely registered the blood pouring down my leg and onto my shoes.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Selwyn roared. I only vaguely heard him, too busy holding a sparkling iridescent shield in place just in case he started throwing spells again. Standing tall like I was currently became a problem as my leg protested. Painfully. I couldn't help but lose my balance and hit the ground. Fuck, that one hurt.

"You're not that whore!" Selwyn deduced, suddenly right in front of me with a wand in my face. The lightheadedness caused by harpoon-through-leg syndrome made me realise that I dropped my wand on the way down. It was just off to my right, I knew. Within grabbing distance. I let out a loud and fake moan.

"Well?" Selwyn demanded. "You think I didn't hear the loud footsteps while I was in the bedroom, mate? You're not exactly a smart one, are you?"

He was right. I had forgotten to cast a Silencing Spell on myself while I was skulking. Well, a hole in my leg was a good reminder that I had my moments of stupidity, and that being more careful might not be a bad thing next time.

In my defence, I was also very tired and renewal time threw me off something terrible when it came to concentration.

Yeah, I'll need a better defence next time.

"Please don't kill me!" I cried, producing another pathetic moan and carefully shifting to the right a bit. I was damn sure he hadn't noticed that I was faking. It hurt, but not enough to turn me into a snivelling schoolboy.

"Who are you?" Selwyn repeated. I moaned and shifted slightly once more. He was brandishing his wand, blue sparks shooting out of the tip. "Who the fuck are-"

I shut him out. My hand was on my wand. The harpoon he had banished through my leg was on the floor behind me.

"Oi! Don't you even dare-"

I flicked my wand behind me, and the harpoon rose up and sliced through the air, heading for his chest region. He deflected it with a deft flick of his wand, recovering immediately and taking careful aim to try and finish me off. I was faster.

I rolled to my left, grimacing as my injured leg screamed in pain, taking cover behind the nearby couch. I quickly transfigured the cushions into stone, mentally patting myself on the back as three smaller harpoons smashed into the stone and not my body. I could hear him cursing me in between spells, now slamming harmlessly into one of my stronger shields protecting the couch and myself. Lying down on my stomach, I poked my wand underneath the couch and took aim at my steadily-approaching target. A non-verbal incantation later, and a conjured harpoon of my own shot out. Selwyn had been too busy setting fire to the couch to deflect this one.

My harpoon hissed through the air at a much, _much_, faster momentum than his had, and I didn't have to push mine through a door. The harpoon struck his ankle and kept going, a rough and decidedly squishy sound taking his entire foot with it. The harpoon embedded itself to the wall behind my target, his entire right foot hanging off of it. From where the harpoon had initially struck until the wall, an indescribably bloody trail marked the entire journey,

He screamed like a banshee and hit the floor, and I hoisted myself up to the couch and peered over the top of it, ignoring the broken stone, embedded harpoons and slight burns the once-stylish couch now bore. I briefly took in the sight of the one-footed Christian Selwyn, clutching his bloody stump and looking like he was about to bleed out right then and there. Blood messily splashed about and covered the room, matching the destroyed muscle and bone decor.

"You're dead!" he wailed. "I will fucking-"

A soft pfft noise briefly filled the air, my spell hitting his neck soundly. The slicing open of his throat silenced him for good.

"What a fucking disaster..." I murmured. Renewal first, followed by making sure I wasn't about to die anytime soon, then a good ol' fashioned clean-up. I sighed as I took in the blood-covered room.

I dragged myself over the couch, hitting the floor with a slight thud. Selwyn's mutilated body lay before me, and it was a thankfully short trip for my injured leg. Along the way, I accidentally crushed his wand with my stomach, but it was no loss. I soon found myself close enough to his fatal neck wound to dip the tip of my wand in the blood, as if I were dipping a quill in a bottle of ink.

A burst of orange lit the blood on my wand, and I was able to sign my name into the air with a flourish. Blood-red words hung in the air for a moment, reminding me as usual of the encounter with Riddle's Horcrux in my second year.

_Harry James Potter._

The words eventually started to burn, though I felt no heat and no smoke choked up the room. The words signing the dotted line of the contract, signed in the blood of a recent kill by the wand that caused the death. My signature written into the fabric of the reality itself, the letters burning into the very existence of this reality my contract had created and become. Periodic renewals maintaining the spell.

When the fire left the air and the words had disappeared, I felt the renewal take hold. The bluish hue was gone. The feeling that all was not quite right was reversed and everything felt just right again. The fascination with blood was replaced with disgust over the scene before me - the hole in my leg, the foot stuck to the wall, the dead Death Eater.

I dove into my own mind. Thoughts of a chaotic nature flittered about; the veritable cyclone of nagging pressure in my mind caused by the contract renewal's deadline subsided now. I mentally rearranged, I pushed and I pushed, thoughts of contracts and how things once were receding into corners left untouched by my waking mind. Until the next renewal deadline approached, it would be only a slight battle to keep the repression up and running.

I sighed aloud and let my mind settle. Focusing on cleaning up my newest mess helped keep things simple. There was something methodical to be had in removing all evidence of a battle from the room, the body of Christian Selwyn included.

The contract had been renewed.

_..::..-.-..::.._

_January 12th, 1999: Signed In Blood_

As the new year turned only a year earlier, right at the height of Voldemort's occupation of the Ministry and after months of fruitless Horcrux hunting, I joined a few Order members for a covert raid of Malfoy Manor. Looking for possible Horcruxes was the main objective, and that failed, but finding several enemies of Voldemort's locked up in Malfoy's cellar was a nice bonus. Olivander and Fortescue were probably back running their stores at Diagon Alley by now, and I'd be sure to get free wand polish or chocolate sundaes for my accidental heroics. But the other two individuals I rescued were a lot more grateful - Voldemort had a track record for killing their kind off, so I got two life debts.

I called in one debt to have Hufflepuff's Cup retrieved from the Lestrange family vault, another Horcrux to add to the 'to be destroyed' pile. I called in the other just a few weeks ago, when times got tough and I decided to squirrel a way out of my dilemma. Cagey bastards that they were, getting these two to help me out despite them thinking both life debts had been repaid by retrieving the Horcrux was a challenge, but the two had procured most of the necessary ingredients required. Tonight, we had met up in a little underground ritual chamber, and the two creatures attempted to blackmail me.

In return, I gifted one with a Cutting Curse to separate his head from his shoulders and promised to send a fruit basket to the other at a later date.

"You eat muffins, right?" I said, stirring the simmering concoction in front of me. The concoction's potency to my nose could only be described as 'horrifying'.

My goblin accomplice sneered. He was a short fella, goblin and all that, and only distinguishable by his sharp shoulders and a scar on his cheek. "I do hope my assistance in this little destruction of the natural order of things pays adequately."

I hooked a thumb over my shoulder, pointing to the dead goblin behind me. Well, the body anyway. The head was more to my side. "You can have his share. Chieftains always want more than I can afford."

Loki said nothing. Though I had demonstrated my apparent lack of respect for the goblin race by killing a chieftain (first human-goblin death in England since Voldemort, so I've got that going for me) right before his eyes moments earlier, I still needed him on my side. Goblins had their uses if you stroked their egos enough and gave them vaultfuls of gold to swim in. Don't get me wrong - I didn't trust the little bastards as far as I could throw them. However, Loki had helped procure a lot of shady ingredients needed for the spell and had only attempted extortion because his chieftain bullied him into it. I guess I owed him something, but only a little.

"Look, you can identify our sacrifice, right?" I said. The concoction in the small cauldron was the correct mauve colour now, and I extinguished the conjured flames underneath the cauldron. Setting it aside to cool for a minute, I awaited Loki's reply.

"Draco Malfoy."

"With Lucius and Narcissa dead, who stands to gain the immense wealth of the Malfoy family, once we subtract the compensations our Ministry took and removed Draco from the picture?" I manually emptied the small cauldron's contents into my bigger cauldron. Well... I suppose vat would be a more applicable term for it. Bigger than the one used by Voldemort to return to corporeal form at the end of my fourth year at Hogwarts, that's for sure.

Huh. I suddenly wondered why Voldemort hadn't tried something as crazy as I was attempting. I got the feeling he wouldn't have the stones to test it out, lest he accidentally killed himself and destroyed most of Britain with him.

"Most of it would go overseas to their French relatives..."

"Right!" I exclaimed. "And then if a good portion of it 'disappeared' as well, later reappearing in your hands by generous donation?"

Loki scowled at me. "I expect a bonus. Some of the ingredients were extremely difficult to procure."

"Did any of your ingredients curse you?" I asked darkly, rubbing my left arm a little. Thank God Draco's aim was horrendous. Though it was a good lesson for any future planned murders - Silencing Spells. Never forget the Silencing Spells. Any Death Eater worth his weight in slaughtered innocents would have a healthy level of paranoia to back it up. Draco tried to kill Dumbledore his first time out - I suspect that gave him a little edge over a garden variety Death Eater.

The chamber was silent as I checked over the rest of my work. Most of the potions, concoctions and solutions were being mixed in my vat, and the runes had been painted or etched into their appropriate surfaces. The chamber was warded to high hell by goblin-made wards too - it was my hope that no Ministry monitoring spells would pick up on the surge of magic to come.

Loki spoke up after a minute or so. "Are you certain the contract is foolproof?"

"I spent three days hammering out the details, didn't I?" Three days and three nights writing that damn thing. The monster-sized roll of parchment was currently propped up against a nearby wall right next to the unconscious Draco Malfoy.

The berk scoffed at me. "You're filling me with confidence."

"I also spent a day checking for spelling errors," I replied acidly. "I'll admit to this sort-of magic being out of my league-"

"You're _shifting reality_. This sort of magic defies probable success and enters a certain-"

"The spell is about intent. My intent is to shift the current reality and bind it to a written contract. A contract to be renewed as often as it takes to maintain the new reality. To maintain this little bubble, this chance for a better ending."

"It's dangerous magic. Wizards have died attempting spells of this calibre."

"And some wizards die mispronouncing 'Wingardium Leviosa'," I retorted. "All of this is necessary." I flapped my uninjured arm around the chamber's width to add to my point.

There was no reply to that, so I continued, "The war was brutal, the war was horrible, and it is over. I do not wish to change things in their entirely. The war happened, and there'd be too many variables that this reality shift cannot cover if I were to erase it completely. The contract can't bring people back to life. It can, however, remove memories, erase people, erase events, change memories and shift the perception of others and what they think happened during the war. Not just mental changes - it will change physical and more tangible objects, like documents and photographs. But, most importantly of all, it will save my friends and those who fought alongside me in the war."

"That you yourself get something out this is..."

I grinned crookedly, though there was no humour in it. Loki shuddered a little. "Like I said before, this is a chance at a better ending." I sighed frustratingly. "I spent half a year hunting down Death Eaters that survived the Battle of Hogwarts with the full backing of the Ministry. That's fine. That's expected. We were rebuilding. But then corruption runs rampant again and Kinglsey's backed into a corner. Those bitter that Voldemort didn't stop the Muggleborn 'menace' still have enough influence to start a witch hunt against the Order. For the things we've done, that I believed necessary at the time and still do, we're about to be crucified for it..."

A full-blown trial would end in a one-way trip to Azkaban for me alone at best, the imprisonment and the complete devastation of my friends and their families at worst. Use of Unforgivables; murder of Death Eaters and Snatchers; collateral damage in several skirmishes, resulting in wizard and Muggle deaths. Apparently, our side didn't deserve to have bygones be bygones and things to be just let go. Both sides did bad things, but our side was _just_. If shifting reality and changing things for the better was what I had to do, I would do it again and again. I was really fucking tired. I wanted the war to go away and I wanted our Ministry to focus on rebuilding itself. I wanted to join the Aurors and spend my days with some excitement, while forging new friendships and maintaining the ones I had now - a happy little bubble with a chance for a good ending.

"I won't run either," I declared aloud. Escaping Wizarding Britain for sunnier pastures would result in a manhunt, my friends getting harsher sentences or an international trial instead of just a local one. Besides that? I do not run from my problems.

Loki's face turned pensive. I checked my vat 'o potions, solutions and concoctions. It was looking rather brown and sludgy, but the very obscure texts behind the potion's recipe were clear on the solution needing to be of a certain consistency. I knew better than anyone that books were not the most trustworthy things in the world, but I was trying to shift reality here. Faith and optimism were a must.

"We will be the only ones to remember the reality as it was," I said, indicating to Loki and myself. Actually I planned to bind the pertinent details of tonight's big ritual in Loki's mind so that he couldn't talk about it, but I didn't need to tell him that.

However, he had goblin mind-reading or something. "And who's to say I won't end up like Chieftain Arvark once the spell is complete and your plot has been executed?"

"Do you plan on betraying or blackmailing me, Loki?"

"Goblins are sly creatures, Potter."

"Usually, but you have no backbone to speak of, so I'm not too worried."

He glowered at me. I briefly entertained the thought of vanishing his backbone magically to prove my point and get a cheap laugh, but reality shifting calls.

"Okay, no more delays," I announced. "So I...?"

Loki's beady little eyes scanned over the runes and the vat's contents. Nodding in approval, he indicated for me to put the contract into the sludge with a gnarled finger. With a deliberately well-pronounced "_Wingardium Leviosa"_, I directed the contract into the sludge.

"Light it," Loki instructed.

I tapped the runes, cast a few spells, and heated the vat's contents.

I ignited the contract as the solution toiled and bubbled, an eerie blue smoke issuing forth as the parchment singed at the corners.

I averted my eyes and got a light tan from the eruption of flames taking the vat over as the burning contract mixed with the potion/concoction/solution mixture.

I was knocked on my ass by an invisible shockwave, shaking me in my very core and sending shivers down my spine. I shut my eyes and took a breath.

I was up again when the lights in my head turned themselves back on and a feeling of wrongness had taken hold of me. The fire was dying down, but all I could see was a bluish hue. The thought that I hit my head or ruined the spell occurred and adrenaline pumped in my veins. Loki seemed unaffected.

"Do you see the blue?" I asked, head pounding.

Loki nodded. "It's the shift trying to make itself the 'dominant' reality, as it were. We're perceiving it because we're in here - everyone else is just going about his or her night, I'd wager. The texts aren't clear, but I'd imagine that, closer to a renewal of the contract, the unravelling reality shift would appear the same colour to those who could perceive that reality had been shifted in the first place." Us, he meant.

I knew the basics of what the contract would entail, and how it would need to be renewed at periodic intervals (though Arvark and Loki hadn't been too sure how often, and my own research into the ritual we were using was equally vague). The contract itself didn't exist anymore in solid form - the words and the intent behind them were being used to maintain the reality shift now at a transcendental level. Now, with the contract going about its business and the shift taking hold, it was time to bind it to myself so as to maintain the new reality.

A reality born in blood. Mine and Draco Malfoy's, specifically.

"_Diffindo,_" I murmured, a small cut appearing in my hand. I let a few drops of blood drip into the dying blue flames, and they were finally doused by my small contribution.

My part done, I set about slicing the unconscious Malfoy's pale neck open. Blood splashed all down his front and on the ground beneath him. I didn't have to wait long for him to bleed out, nor did it take long to dip the tip of my wand in his blood. The blood of a man that very wand had just killed.

Taking a few steps away from Malfoy's body, I calmly ignored the odd bluish hue and Loki's penetrating stare, signing my name in the air with a swish of my wand and the appropriate spell:

_Harry James Potter._

The blood-red words hung in the air, standing tall in contrast to the blue hue. A determined heat was vibrating through my blood, the heat rendering me immune to the coldness of the underground chamber. The blood on my wand's tip dissipated. The floating words erupted in flame, and so did my head. The most violent assault on my mind, the knowledge of what I had done here tonight pressuring it, _testing_ it. The spell was feeding off of _my_ magic, _my_ blood, _my_ life. The power. The fire. The shift in reality as I knew it. Everybody else who I had shifted wouldn't feel it; I was feeling it for them. My power. My fire. My shift in the reality.

When I opened my eyes again, unaware that I had closed them in the first place when the pain became too intense, I was looking at the roof of the chamber. White marble, no blue to speak of. I could feel the reality around me. I had shifted it successfully.

A contract signed in blood. A contract that would need to be signed again and again, as long as it takes.

"I think I did it..." I muttered. Loki, his face displaying high amounts of shock and disbelief that I had successfully shifted reality, simply stared.

As long as it takes.

..::..-.-..::..

To be continued in Chapter Two: Nine.

..::..-.-..::..


	2. Chapter Two: Nine

Thanks to all those who put the story on alert/favourites or reviewed it. I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

..::..-.-..::..

Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. This fanfiction is a non-profit thing written for enjoyment of myself and my readers.

Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs.

Written by Matt Silver

..::..-.-..::..

Previously on Breach of Contract: Post-HBP AU. Harry Potter won the war. He didn't do it cleanly, and desperate actions were taken in those desperate times. Those at the Ministry and on the Wizengamot who were not approving of those actions started a witch-hunt. To prevent total devastation of those closest to him, Harry shifted reality and bound it to a contract, a contract that must be renewed periodically. Failure to renew before the deadline is reached will only end badly.

Now, in November 2001, Auror Potter deals with a string of Muggle killings in a ritualistic fashion. Meanwhile, he secretly stays in communication with Remus Lupin, who ran away during the war and is thought to be dead. Harry's best friend is Nymphadora Tonks, and although he created the contract in order to give him and his friends a happy ending, such a thing might prove impossible as the renewals take priority and Harry can't find time for his friends...

..::..-.-..::..

Chapter Two: Nine

..::..-.-..::..

_About Three Weeks Later: The Ninth_

Boot, sinister eyepatch and all, glared at me on my right. Robards, frowning through his beard, held out a meaty paw.

"That's it?" he asked. The bundle of parchment in my hands was an admittedly small bundle, but just last month he had given me a big lecture about concise reports because his immediate superior Williamson had given him a big lecture on the same subject. Robards, ever the one to curry favour wherever he could, was more than happy to make his Aurors master the art of bulletpoints.

"Concise and to the point," I confirmed, handing the report over. "Dover and I have been working double time while the rest of the department rotates out of South America, and most of our assignments have been dealt with."

After only scanning one page, Robards tossed the report to Boot. "File that somewhere," he said. He looked at me. "Potter, I'm a busy man. Give me the highlights."

I nodded. "On the third we were able to arrest one Michael Flannigan for his improper use of ritual magic, namely the sacrificial rites involving several puppies kidnapped from his Muggle neighbours. By the twelfth we had sorted out that whole mess about the exploding cauldrons, and the proper fines have been paid. Our two separate raids of Borgin and Burkes, one on the tenth and one on the fifteenth, yielded no chargeable offences. The monster in the Muggle building in Manchester was identified as a Boggart and removed on the seventeenth. We have also started our inventory of the items procured from the old hideaway unearthed in Serenity Valley, once thought to be owned by the Dark Lord Atraven a couple of centuries back. I think that's all."

"Have you ascertained the whereabouts of Christian Selwyn?" Boot inquired. My leg twitched unconsciously. Thankfully, the damage from Selwyn's little projectile harpoon had been healed by a friendly Healer at St Mungo's, her services repaid with a Memory Charm for good measure.

I schooled my features to avoid looking smug. "His solicitor's latest reply has kindly requested that we stop sending him letters, and he says that he has no idea where we can find Mr Selwyn. With evidence gathered from our goblin friends, we can safely say that Selwyn's done a runner. All that gold must've gone with him." Actually, Loki had it now. That little schemer had definitely deserved his early Christmas bonus this year.

"Are you keeping an eye on Mr Selwyn's immediate family?" Boot asked.

"Miss Moon is being watched periodically, but given her family's split from Mr Selwyn back in the late eighties, it seems unlikely he'll try to contact her or her parents. I'd safely bet he's long gone by now."

"Good riddance to 'im," Robards grunted. "Hope he has the good sense to not show up dead somewhere. After Greengrass, I could do without the hassle."

I smiled and tipped my head. Lord Greengrass's tragic death months earlier had been a crime of passion - his daughter's fiancée declaring his love by decapitating her father. The man I'd framed had enough gold to wiggle out of any prosecution, and last I checked he was living comfortably with Daphne out on the British Virgin Islands.

Robards retrieved a large pipe from his desk, lit it, and took a drag. Letting loose an obnoxious puff of smoke, he said, "How 'bout the whorehouse that burned down? Heard it could be arson."

"Auror Ravenwood and her partner are still dealing with that mess," I said.

Robards nodded. "Right right. What about the Sorcerer case? I got Jason Cole giving me all sorts of grief about his wife's dead brother, and Williamson has been breathing down my neck about it the last few weeks. What's your progress?"

I shrugged. Boot glared at me for my impudence. "Nothing, really. We haven't identified the knife used, and our Muggle friends are coming up empty too. With the recent workload, it's been harder to work with what little we already had to begin with. I know it sounds cold, but waiting for another body may be our only option."

"That," Robards hissed, as if I had said a string of curse words, "does not get to the press, you hear me? I don't care if he's locked up in his crypt or something - Maximillian Jensen does not hear a word of that." He shuddered. "Ghostly bastard freaks me out."

I grinned a little. "Is that all?"

"Yes yes, get outta here. But I want your focus on the Sorcerer case as of now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Now. No waiting around for a ninth body to show up-"

My partner, Mackenzie Dover, chose that moment to barge into Robards's office, waving a sheet of paper around. "Got a message from the Muggles. There's a ninth body out at Chelsea. The Sorcerer has struck again."

I gathered from the glares coming from both Boot and Robards that this was somehow my fault. I stood up, intent on doing the smart thing: deflecting attention.

"Hey Mac, weren't you supposed to be at this meeting too?"

Dover just smiled. "I was off checking to see if we had any new developments on this very high-profile case. I had a hunch is all."

The rest of us in the room collectively rolled our five collective eyes. Robards and Boot immediately set about organising the manpower needed to retrieve the body and check out the crime scene, myself and Dover being ordered out first and foremost. In Robards's own words, we had to, "find a damn clue so we can catch this fucking killer."

I cajoled Dover into taking the stairs with me down to the Atrium, but his natural laziness shone through and I spent over a minute waiting for him to catch up to my level.

"I'm coming!" I heard him shout. I chuckled, one matched by the more feminine one from behind me - Tonks.

"What's going on?" she asked, her hair an understated gold colour today. "You two heading out?"

"Got a body," I said. "Sorcerer case, we assume."

"It is," Dover said, finally arriving at our level. "Muggles sent me a photo too, though the lack of movement in those things never ceases to freak me out."

"Yeah, it's not like a dead body would move in the first place or anything," Tonks chirped.

"But we have to be sure of it, and we'll find out when we get there," I said. "As in, about two minutes ago in the time it took you to take the stairs."

Dover rolled his eyes at me. "We could've taken the lifts!"

"And get stuck for another five hours? No thanks. Come on, let's go." I circled around Tonks to head for the Atrium, Dover following.

"We still on for tonight?" Tonks called to my retreating back. I paused and turned, Dover nearly bumping into me as I did.

"Sorry, Tonks," I said gently. "It's pretty likely that Robards will keep us all night if we don't solve the case today. Which we won't, I'll bet. We'll do dinner another time."

She deflated a little, but nodded anyway. "Another time, then. Be seeing you."

"Same," I said, dismissing any thought of her as I crossed the Atrium and reached the nearest Apparation point. Dover beside me, I Apparated to a small alleyway located a minute's walk from the crime scene.

It wasn't hard to find, of course - the Muggle police cars and the small crowd outside the abandoned primary school were big enough clues - and we made our way there with minimal fuss. The Muggle policemen were not a big obstacle. Official procedure was to show off identification badges that listed us as special agents on a special taskforce they'd never heard of, but I had forgotten mine and Dover had probably lost his in a poker game. Dover shot off a quick Confundus Charm to solve our problem, and we soon found ourselves kneeling on the cold ground and poking at a dead body. Same stab wound. Same Portkey button.

Then something odd caught my eye.

"What is... that?" It would've been an innocuous thing, had it not been burnt into the underside of our victim's flesh. The hole punched into his chest from whatever knife the Sorcerer had used had left me a nice view of the dead Muggle's insides, including what looked like a dark arrow-shaped mark. I flicked my wand out of its holster and into my hand, illuminating the tip with a bright light.

"What is what?" Dover hadn't noticed it yet. I brightened the light on my wand-tip, and Dover's eyes flashed. I would've called it realisation, but something felt off in his eyes and I had to look away for a moment. "That's a..."

I ignored the uncomfortable feeling in my gut. "A signature of sorts?"

"That's a Sagittarius," Dover said. "Zodiac symbol, like in the _Prophet's _little daily column_. _Useless stuff, but I know the sign."

"Was this on the other body we looked at?" I racked my brains - I had been this close to the previous victim, but I couldn't remember a blackened Sagittarius sign under Mr Goren's skin. Then again, my personal examination had been amidst an incoming contract renewal deadline and all the fun that goes with, so I wouldn't exactly call my concentration on the day perfect.

Dover groaned. "I don't know. It could've! I mean, look, it's sort-of a fluke thing that you spotted it and... oh _shit_. Boot's going to flay us."

"The Muggles never noticed either. We read the reports, we saw their pictures, and there was no mention of these. There's something magical about this mark. Probably to hide it from the Muggles examining the bodies... Or we have a copycat. Took a leaf out of the Sorcerer's book but added a new twist to differentiate himself." I shook my head. "I can't be sure. Either way, we need to get the other bodies exhumed and check them."

"Exhumed?" We spun away from the dead man, finding Boot standing there with a frown. "Is there a new development?"

"Dover can explain it," I said. Something was off about the mark. Once again, I attempted to place a similar sign on Robert Goren's body earlier this month, but I kept blanking. Actually, it was more... blue. Perceptions of the days closer to a renewal deadline were murky. I felt like hitting something for some reason. A mystery I couldn't solve easily was not the norm. The feeling of pressure settled like a slimy and unidentifiable weight in my head and in my stomach.

"Look, it's not a big deal..." Dover was saying, blathering on in the face of Boot's most murderous facial expressions. I just knew we would be tackling the paperwork involved with digging up dead Muggles for the rest of the day.

My fear was very justified. After combing the crime scene and coming up empty, I spent the morning in my little cubicle with Dover and a few books worth of paperwork. The bulk of it was mostly Muggle, as our dear Head Auror Robards had decided that digging the bodies up through the official channels was a more politically-friendly solution than simply spelling the right folk into getting us some dead Muggles. The eighth victim, Robert Goren, was the first dug up at Jason Cole's behest, and we skipped lunch to open the body up once more.

"Huh." Our 'Cutter' was Healer Pierce - a stout man who seemed to enjoy his job in slicing up dead people a little too much. "That doesn't look like a Sagittarius."

"No, that looks like a Scorpio," Dover said, pointing his wand at the nearby _Daily Prophet _we had scourged up. I scanned Trelawney's daily Divination column, specifically the zodiac section. Sure enough, right there on the page was a small m-shaped sign marked as Scorpio, matching the one on Mr Goren's body. "Burnt right in, just like the Sagittarius on Mr..."

"Lawrence," I said.

"Lawrence, who we found this morning."

"I swear on my mother's grave that that wasn't there before," Pierce said vehemently.

"Really? That was going to be my excuse," Dover joked.

"Robards is going to have my head for this, I know it!"

"Shut up," I said. "No pressure guys. We're making progress, aren't we? We'll just have to dig up the rest of the victims and get them checked out. If we solve the case, Robards won't care that we screwed up. It happens, and as long as something positive comes out of it, no pressure." I looked to Dover. "You're the zodiac expert. What sign should we be expecting next?"

He shrugged. "If there's a tenth, I'd... Nope, not a clue. We can presume that there'll be a different sign on each body."

"Sound logic," I said, picking up a nearby file on Robert Goren. Boring guy, really. Just a normal Muggle businessman. I almost envied him. "Pierce, is there anything magical about the marks?"

Pierce flicked his wand about for a moment, before shaking his head. "No. I mean, it was burnt there with a spell, probably after the Muggle was killed. Probably something about it to hide it from the other Muggles, but I'll need someone else to have a look at them."

"Don't remove anything though," Dover warned. "Robards's orders. No desecrating the bodies anymore than needed."

Something interesting popped up in Goren's file. It was basically a flashing neon sign with "Notice Me!" written on it.

"Dover..."

"Yeah, Harry?"

"Top of your head: when was Goren born?"

Dover scrunched his face up. "Mid-November, I think. The sixties."

A pattern was emerging. I almost crowed in triumph. "And Mr Lawrence?"

I'd said it once before, but it bore repeating: Dover was a good Auror when he put his mind to it, and his mind had a few years on mine. "End of November. As in, born under the Sagittarius sign in the tropical zodiac."

"Goren was a Scorpio..." Pierce said. "Well, looks like we're not out of the job yet!"

"I'll bet anything that our previous victims were all born under seven other zodiac signs, and the signs they were branded with will match them."

"How about when they were killed?" Dover asked. "The first body was killed, when?"

"Five months ago, late June," Pierce replied. "I see your line of thinking, but no. This is our ninth victim, and if the Sorcerer marked them all, it wasn't with the sign they were killed under. Unless there's repeats or something."

"There won't be," I said. "Dover, I need you to get me the files for our previous victims. We have a pattern, and this might help us figure out the killer's ultimate goal. Get to it."

It turned out, after a few minutes or so of checking the retrieved files, that each victim _had_ been born under a different sign. Pierce would no doubt be spending the next few days confirming that the 'sign born under equals sign branded with' theory, while we presented out findings to Robards and Boot.

"Nine bodies, a very probable guess that there are nine different signs on each body, correlating with the zodiac sign they were born under." I was in full-on lecture mode - Hermione would be proud. "When they were killed appears irrelevant. But the method is the same. Stabbed by the same big knife, followed by the sign being magically branded into the underside of the victim's flesh post-mortem. Given the nature of these murders, I think a ritual is the most likely outcome."

Robards nodded. "Good work, good work. Any ideas on what kind of ritual?"

Dover shrugged. "Not really, sir. Off the top of my head, I'd imagine there's something big going down somewhere and on some specific time, and it'll involve three more deaths. It's likely that the next victims will be a Capricorn, an Aquarius and a Pisces."

"I've got a few ideas though," I said. "Tomorrow morning, with your permission, I can go visit a contact of mine. See what I can find on zodiac rituals."

"Same here," Dover interjected, probably wanting to sound useful. I wondered if, by massive coincidence, his own contacts would involve busty barmaids somewhere.

"Well get to it then," Robards ordered. "First thing tomorrow, but tonight you've got to hand off any other open assignments to Auror Ravenwood and her partner... uhh... MacDonald, I think. Anyway, if there's a Dark ritual going down, it's now top priority Auror business. Understand?"

"No pressure," I said lightly. Robards's expression turned thunderous.

"Yes there is so fucking pressure," he snapped. "Cole's complaining to Williamson and Williamson's wondering if my Aurors are up to snuff." He glared at the two of us. "If I get shafted because you two can't solve this thing, you're both done. Potter never finished Auror training after all, and Dover, you are just generally inept."

Quite the pep talk, really. I quite disliked him, and I especially disliked the feeling of being under pressure. I was hoping tomorrow's visit ended up fruitful.

Dover and I did deskwork for a few hours past our shift's end, fuming over Robards's usual bullshit. Tonks dropped by at around midnight with some Muggle takeaway. She was gone as quickly as she came, and I got the distinct feeling I was ignoring something. Damn pressure.

..::..-.-..::..

_The Next Day: War Wounds_

It had been a while since I had stopped by at Hogwarts. I had my reasons for avoiding the place, but there was something magical, pun intended, about seeing the castle in all its glory after some time. This morning was no different - it was a bright and sunny, if a little chilly, day, the castle brightened by the sun's rays and standing tall, surrounded by wet grass and a feeling of pure magic in the air.

I heard a bell ring throughout the castle. The Friday morning break between classes had started, and I had a fifteen minute window. With my much longer legs these days, I could scale the North Tower in about five minutes easily enough. Plenty of time.

I got a few stares as I walked the halls. I was a celebrity for one thing, an adult that was not a professor for the other. I barely recognised the students, though. My line of work rarely involved children, and any friends I knew with kids were a decade or so away from Hogwarts schooling. Bill and Fleur's eldest would be first up, I mused, waving a quick hello to Nearly Headless Nick as I passed him on the staircases.

But when I rounded into an empty corridor, the atmosphere changed. There was no warmth of students or ghosts or gossiping portraits - just coldness and a static memory of the war's final battle that had taken place within these walls. The castle had been repaired of all cosmetic wounds, but its magic had a life of its own, and that life was scarred now. It didn't let many of its occupants feel that - just those who had spilled blood, their own or someone else's, in the final battle. Hogwarts didn't like me, I gathered. I carried a different aura in my magic. In my blood. The contract. The castle knew I had shifted reality itself, rewrote things and warped and erased and...

Several of the more terrifying events that had taken place in these walls had been erased by spell. But I knew that those events happened, and Hogwarts had a sense about it. It knew it all too.

I was so very thankful when the portrait of Sir Cadogan popped up in my line of sight, and he started chatting to me as if we were old pals. It made the trip to Lavender's tower a bit more bearable.

"Come in, Harry," she called out as I approached the trapdoor. I chuckled, noticing the small mirror hanging on the wall, a clear view of the approaching hallway reflected in it.

"Tricky," I said, climbing the ladder and letting myself in. Trelawney being her hero and all, Lavender hadn't deigned to redecorate the tower. There was still that horrible musty perfume smell, a stuffy heat and shimmering fabrics covering the windows. "Haven't been here in a while."

"Not even to visit an old friend," Lavender Brown teased. She, thankfully, had not adopted Trelawney's style of dress, instead opting for fashionable purple robes that hugged her curves and showed off a tantalising hint of skin. I wondered if the male population's interest in Divination had risen since she had taken over. Compared to the other professors, Lavender was a few decades younger and a hell of a lot prettier.

She hugged me, which felt nice. "How've you been?" I asked once we had disengaged. I tried to keep my tone gentle - Lavender's vanity about her current condition was legendarily snappish. "You look good."

I cringed. Nice one Harry.

"I'm great!" she declared, flipping her hair to one side and showing off the dark spots that marred her pale skin. The scars dotted the side of her neck and up to her left ear, ugly black burns that'll never fade. Best I understood, the scars were the result of superheated brain tissue exploding out the back of Parvati Patil's head. Nobody escaped the war without a permanent wound or two, physical or mental.

"Do you have a class to get ready for?" I asked, settling myself against a wall while Lavender prepared some tea. "I can come back later..."

"It's fine," she said. "Firenze has the third years right now, and while sometimes I do go and check up on the kids, I can skip it if Auror Harry Potter needs my attention."

"Good," I said. I produced a sheet of parchment. "Standard binding agreements apply. This is a sensitive issue if you wish to help me out. You'll receive a stipend and everything in your capacity as an 'official consultant'."

She took the parchment and read it. "Sounds all secret-y," she cooed. Producing a quill from her robes, she signed the contract. "What do you need?"

"I've got a case. Had it for a few weeks actually, but a recent development indicates there's a connection to the zodiac. You're one of the biggest Astronomy and Divination nuts I know and trust." Better her than Firenze the centaur. I avoided magical creatures outside of Remus and Loki as a rule, just in case they sensed something about me related to the contract. "Not only that, but this is Hogwarts. I'd bet big gold that you have books on the subject, those that would never hit the library or any bookstores. Passed down through the years, maybe."

She laughed airily, handing me a chipped mug filled with tea. "Go on..."

"My partner's nicknamed this serial killer the 'Constellation Killer' or the 'Zodiac Killer'. Something like that. He or she stabs Muggles and burns a zodiac sign under their skin after they die. The signs correspond with the one the victim was born under, and not the one they died under." I produced a few photographs from my robes - one of Mr Goren's Scorpio mark and one of Mr Lawerence's Sagittarius. "These are the two most recent kills. We're nine bodies in, and common sense says there's only three left until they have a full set."

She raised an eyebrow at the pictures. "Are they... burnt on the... how 'bout that."

"We're thinking ritual, obviously," I said, taking a sip of my tea. Not bad at all. "Got any hints?"

"Well..." She mulled over the pictures for a minute, stopping occasionally to take measured sips of tea. "You have the bodies, right?"

"Correct. The killer disposes of them and lets the Muggles take care of them. He uses Portkeys, but our guys at the Ministry can't trace them or anything like that. The Muggles never spotted the zodiac marks, either."

She tossed me the picture of Mr Goren's insides. "Is it just me or this body a little more decayed?"

"We dug him up later. Turns out we missed it the first time," I admitted. She gave me a look. "I was busy."

"Still are, I gather." At my shrug, she elaborated. "Your shoulders are tense and you look tired as hell." She shook her head. "But since we're not here to psychoanalyse Harry Potter... I think I might have a book or two." She clicked her fingers. "Ah-ha! Got just the thing in my office."

I abandoned my tea and followed her into the much more conservative office. The musk of the classroom carried slightly, but the windows were wide open and light was streaming in. I liked this office immediately. Lavender shuffled through a bookshelf in the far corner, muttering to herself. Eventually, she pulled a slim volume out.

"Zodiac rituals involve aligning oneself with the stars themselves," she explained. I was impressed with the teacher-tone she carried. "You said those poor Muggles were branded with the sign they were born under, and not with the one they were murdered under. Symbolically, that means the ritual is about birth more than death. But the zodiac is a constant cycle, and cycles are in constant death and rebirth. Some of the rituals in this book were once popular centuries ago. The ritual would involve a rebirthing ceremony, the one undertaking the ritual gaining new and immense power after this rebirth. Mostly, diviners performed the ritual in order to gain the Sight."

"Did it work?" I asked. "Did the wizards gain the Sight after this 'rebirth'?"

"Don't quite know," she replied, pushing the slim volume into my hands. "Not sure this is the same thing either, but the principle might be the same. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility of this just be a Muggle-hunting wizard who likes Divination. He may just be marking his victims for kicks or to throw people like you off the trail."

I shook my head. "Trust me, I thought the same thing once or twice last night. But something is... I don't know. I get the occasional feeling about things, you know? Probably a side effect of my upbringing." Or a reality shift spell. "There's something Dark afoot. I don't want the twelfth body to be found. That could mean bad, a whole lot of it. You said rebirth? What if some nutter wanted to bring Voldemort back?" Could be Grindelwald. Could be Atraven. Could mean more deaths either way.

Lavender considered my words, pursing her lips. "Tell me more. About the case."

"Like?"

"How were the Muggles killed?"

"Stabbed, same knife, same upper chest area. Near the heart. Nothing removed. Knife not identified yet."

She hummed. "Anything magical about the marks burnt into the bodies?"

"We've got people working on that."

"If the killer's dumping the bodies, that means that most of the power behind the ritual is tied to certain tools. The wand and the knife."

She had a point. My own contract renewals were tied to me killing people with magic through my wand, a connection that ran back to my blood, and from there, into the contract. My wand was the focus point. "If our killer's wand burned the marks into the victims, there could be a connection. The wand to the killer. The wand to the knife. Something..."

"There's a few notes on that in the book I gave you," Lavender said. "Sorry I can't be much more help, Harry. Dark magic rituals aren't really my thing, I'm afraid."

"No, that's okay," I said. "I'll leave the tea-leaf reading and the crystal balls to you, then?"

She laughed and swatted me on the shoulder playfully. "I'm making a prediction now, actually. You are about to receive two letters."

"Letters?" Her eyes briefly darted to the window to her immediate left, and I approached it. Sure enough, two owls were heading this way.

"I rarely get letters outside of breakfast," Lavender said with a small smile. "And you're the big important Auror guy and all."

The first owl bore a Ministry collar, and the letter was from Dover. At Lavender's insistence, I gave her the gist. "Our boss is getting a little testy about this case and what it means for his politicking. I couldn't care less, but I'm being ordered to come in immediately." I sighed. "I miss the Death Eater days when everyone was more concerned about keeping people safe."

"You did good in that regard, if it's any consolation."

The second letter was from Remus. About a week ago, he had sent me a terse missive with news that he'd recovered some of his old school things, including several items that belonged to my parents. He wanted me to have them, and busy though I was and conscious that our last meet-up was frosty with a side of bad tea, I had agreed to another lunch.

"Just a reminder," I told the ever-nosy Lavender. "Lunch tomorrow with a friend."

"Oooh, is it your Auror girlfriend?" Still reading the tabloids, eh Lavender? Tonks had stuck several of the more outrageous Skeeter-esque pieces on her fridge, especially the ones that had called her character into question. I, meanwhile, had to restrain myself from adding reporters to my list of people worth killing come contract renewal time.

"No, Lavender," I said flatly. "I should head off though. It's been great catching up. Let's do it again sometime."

"We should!" She hugged me again, showed me the trapdoor, and I was off. I kept up a fast pace while walking the emptier halls, clutching the book Lavender had given me in my hand.

Out on the grounds, I encountered Neville Longbottom, well on his way to becoming Sprout's replacement as Herbology professor.

"Hey Harry, how it's going?" he said cheerfully.

"Work's going," I said shortly but not unkindly. "Sorry mate, but I gotta..."

"Don't let me keep you," Neville said with a smile. I smiled too, before heading off. It seemed like I had been ignoring my friends a lot more lately. Didn't like that.

..::..-.-..::..

_December 1st, 1998: Under Pressure_

The kitchen was cold, its occupants moody, and the atmosphere in general was just depressing. Ron had gotten into Sirius's old Firewhiskey stash. Hermione had only half-heartedly stopped him from opening a third bottle. I footed the ash pile that had been my red Auror robes minutes earlier. A cathartic outburst towards the Ministry in general, it had been.

I had fucking worked for them when I didn't have to. I had dived right back into the thick of things and helped take care of the remaining Death Eaters. I should've just rested. I should've sat back and let the Death Eaters bog the Ministry down long enough. The idea of trials and prosecutions against our side should never have come up. But it did. I had helped the Ministry out for half a year, and now I was days away from becoming a wanted man.

It was more than a betrayal in the general sense. Kingsley had been on our side throughout the war, the man with the calm advice and a shoulder to lean on, a rock for all those involved. I would never have guessed that that he was secretly disapproving of our actions, nor that he would cajole other like-minded Order members into testifying against us in exchange for immunity. I felt like burning another set of robes.

"We could run," Ron suggested with a slight slur.

"I run and their attentions magnify on everybody else," I said quietly. "The three of us run and they go after the Weasleys, Luna, Tonks - everyone else who wouldn't stand for Neville being locked up. Every single one of us run and we'll never find peace or a place to hide. The international ministries might be even harsher in comparison. We couldn't hide with the Muggles forever... Besides, I do not run away."

Ron nodded along, his comprehension suspect. He pointed to Hermione. "How 'bout you? Any bright ideas?"

"No," she murmured. "But maybe we should just go for a deal or something-"

"And you can continue your education from Bellatrix's old cell, then?" I said acidly. She reacted as if I had struck her, and I softened. "Sorry Hermione, I just..." The words wouldn't form.

The pressure would get to me soon, if it hadn't already.

"The Wizengamot won't be sympathetic," I said. "They're the ones who pushed Kingsley into a corner and started this mess. Neville's trial is in a month. We can't allow it to go through. The Wizengamot are going to sentence him. Maybe even kill him."

"Kill him?" Ron spluttered. "He did wrong in their eyes, I'll give them that, but kill him? Execute him? That's barmy."

"That's just it, Ron. In their eyes." I scoffed. "Neville's list of supposed crimes is quite impressive for an eighteen year-old. Let's see... trained an army of students, most of whom ended up dead or murderers after the final battle. He provoked Voldemort's puppets at Hogwarts so frequently that half the student population got tortured as a result. He instigated insurrectionist acts with us over the Christmas hols. I'm pretty sure that his killings will be noticed too - however many he killed in the final battle, the Bulstrode Abode fire, and the one cold-blooded murder of Rabastan Lestrange."

"Torture and murder," Hermione corrected, out of habit more than anything.

"Amplify and vilify, that's what they'll do," I said darkly. "It got out of hand and Lestrange died - that's what we know. What they'll say is that Neville meant to slice Lestrange's wrist along the vein and he let the man bleed out. I bet they'll even have someone in the Order up there testifying that fact. All because Kingsley told them it was for the best."

"Bulstrode Abode?"

"Tragic mistake via poor intelligence to us. Illegal use of Fiendfyre and destruction of ancient property, not to mention the people who died because of it, to them."

"How bad do you think they'll hang us?" Ron asked.

They had gone for Neville first because he had no one. His extended family was out of the country and his grandmother and parents were either dead or incapacitated. Tonks or any of the other Aurors in the Order would be next on the list, but I'd bet anything Kingsley would let them off lightly. He valued Auror talent. Luna would be safe as long as her father kept _The Quibbler _up and running. "Neville's just the appetiser. I think it's safe to say the three of us are the main course. The rest of your family is dessert."

"As for our crimes..." I continued, honestly needing a moment to think about it. "Unforgivable use. I've used all three, while the two of you both used the Imperius once or twice-"

"I Crucio'd once too," Ron said. "Some twit in the battle..."

"One use of Cruciatas for Ron then. Let's see... Destruction of pureblood property. Ron, Bill, Neville and me for Bulstrode Abode, the three of us for the Ministry building, me and Tonks for Malfoy Manor." I hummed. If Moody were still here, he'd be charged with all of those crimes. Bastard got off lucky. "Oh, conspiracy to commit theft from the goblins, though I think poor Arvark and Loki will get the worst of it. What else? Murder, mayhem, torture, collateral damage. Let me rack my brain a bit..."

"Stop it," Hermione said forcefully.

Ron snorted, and I too wished to be drunk at that moment. "Fuck it, we're screwed. To Azkaban or an early grave then!" And there went the rest of Ron's third bottle.

He opened up another bottle of Firewhiskey, chugging it. My foot started tapping nervously and Hermione started to sob, but apart from that the kitchen was quiet for a few minutes. I checked my watch - time was going slower for the three of us here. It had only been twenty minutes since Bill had gone off to check on Neville, since we didn't have visitation status. Bill would be arriving back in three... two...

One.

I checked my watch again. Only one second had passed. I fleetingly considered the watch to be broken or spelled by a devious trickster, but I had not needed to study further; the Floo in the next room activated. Hermione quickly wiped her eyes, though Ron didn't move from his spot or even lower the bottle. Bill Weasley shuffled into the kitchen, and the three of us diverted our attention to him and him alone.

"Bad news, I'm afraid," Bill announced, his expression grave. "I talked to Neville and I talked to his solicitor, but it's not good. A month from now, I think Azkaban's going to have a new long-term prisoner."

Confirmation. I felt rage. Ron swore and Hermione looked about ready to burst into tears again. I don't know how it got into my hand, but my wand was spitting sparks. One of Ron's empty Firewhiskey bottles exploded.

"That is fucking bullshit," Ron hissed. Bill nodded, reaching over the table to nab his brother's Firewhiskey bottle for himself.

"That's not all," Bill said, taking a long pull from the bottle. "On my way out I overheard Dawlish talking to some other Aurors. They're gearing up to arrest two certain individuals who live out at Ottery St Catchpole."

A trickle of pure fear shot down my spine. "Lovegoods."

"Right in one," Bill confirmed. "I've asked Tonks to join up with the arrest team and make sure nobody gets injured, but she was spacing out and probably didn't hear me."

"I'll talk to her later," I said. "But for now, I need to pay a visit to Kingsley Shacklebolt."

Hermione made a disapproving sound. "Harry, I've known you long enough to know that you shouldn't barge into situations when you're angry. We just need to sit down, think this through, and then set up an appointment at a later date. He's the Minister, Harry. He's very busy."

"Busy jailing our friends, most likely," Bill said darkly. Ron and I echoed the sentiments, me with a nod and Ron with a drunken "Too right!"

"It'll be fine, Hermione." Ludo Bagman would've won a tidy sum if I had bet my vault on that statement remaining accurate. "If I'm not back within three hours, find me a nice solicitor and prepare to break me out of Azkaban. Whichever makes more sense."

"But Harry-"

Are the next words coming out of her mouth going to be, "Go get 'em, tiger!"?

"What's going to happen if you can't convince Kingsley to back off? Or if you get thrown in Azkaban? I admire your loyalty, Harry, I do, but-" Nope.

I tuned out and exited the kitchen. I picked up a pinch of Floo Powder from a pot in the next room, tossing it into the fireplace. As the flames crackled and turned emerald green, I heard footsteps - Hermione had followed me.

"Harry, don't go. Don't do anything drastic."

I let out a single breath. I took another in, planning to hold it for a while. I looked into her eyes. That's it, stop judging me. The breath was out again. "For God's sake Hermione, have you ever been in a leadership position in your entire fucking life like I have? I'm the one bloody responsible for Neville and for Luna and anything else that happens in the coming days. All I feel right now is pressure and rage. Let me tell you, if they keep increasing the former, the latter is going to go up and I'm going to start exploding things. So listen to me carefully: get off my back. I am going to make a decision, as a leader, and I plan to stick to it. Nobody's going to die, nobody's going to Azkaban, and those on the other side of us will be nice and apologetic by the time this mess is over. So. Please, Hermione. Can I. Just. Go?"

In retrospect, it was kind of rude of me to simply Floo out before she could answer. As I shot up through the flames, I swore I could hear Ron giggling, having heard my breathless rant through the walls.

The Ministry of Magic's Atrium was usually filled with people, and today being no exception and me still being a big celebrity in these parts, I naturally got attention. Some of it was of the glaring type from a few folks I could honestly say I'd never had a quarrel with before. Being an actual worker for the Ministry, I didn't need to check in with Eric the Watchwizard, so I headed straight for the lifts, jumping on the first empty one I could find and heading to the floor below Kingsley's office.

I Disillusioned myself before the lift stopped, and only a few wizards on the second floor noticed the supposedly empty lift arrive. I wove my way past a few workers to reach the nearest stairwell, ascending to the Minister's office.

The entire floor was well-furnished, all golds and silvers and with ornate portraits of former Ministers hanging on the walls. I passed several offices, including the offices of the undersecretaries, before turning a corner and finding myself in the reception area outside of Kingsley's office.

The office was guarded by a sour-looking witch who was fighting the lunchtime lull by charming her nails different colours. Kingsley was notorious for eating lunch during his allocated hour instead of working, Minister emergency or no. I had gathered that it was to please his wife, who would "always know" if he hadn't eaten her pre-prepared sandwiches. I could almost find the quirk admirable if I wasn't a little pissed at the man.

A Sleeping Charm sent his secretary to sleep almost instantly, and I erected a quick ward to let me know if someone was approaching the reception area. I could hear soft chewing noises through the wall. Aurors being as paranoid as they are, I half expected Kingsley to start flinging curses at me through the door any moment. I had not expected the large wooden door to open by itself, nor did I expect to be waved in.

"Come in, Harry." I was still invisible, last I checked. I shut the door behind me and dispelled the disillusionment. At his gesture, I took the seat opposite his own, though calling the Minister's big chair a seat wouldn't be the right word. Throne came to mind - a throne that made Ministers like Fudge lazier as time passed. I couldn't blame them though. That chair looked comfortable.

Kingsley's desk could only be described as mahogany perfection, but was unfortunately covered in sandwich remains and stray parchment. A photograph of Neville, taken when he was arrested a week ago, looked up at me in confusion.

"You sound tired, Minister," I said. He abandoned his sandwich and opened a desk drawer. I pointed my wand at him just in case, but he simply pulled out a bottle of amber liquid and two thick glasses.

"Drink?" he offered. I shook my head, and he shrugged, pouring himself a glass.

"A normal habit of yours since getting the desk, Kingsley?"

He took a sip. "A man is entitled to one last drink."

"You think I'm going to kill you?"

"Aren't you?"

I suppose sneaking into his office and pointing my wand at his face might've given off the wrong impression. Well, not wrong. Just a bad one.

I lowered my wand a bit, the tip still pointing upwards towards his chest. "Give me a reason or two not to. I'm glad you've made new friends Kingsley, but you're turning your old friends into enemies. Especially that one guy who killed Voldemort."

"A child of prophecy with luck on his side," Kingsley said.

"Okay, let's ignore me then," I replied lightly. "Let's talk about Dumbledore. Great man, Dumbledore. Did some things he wasn't proud of when he was younger, but managed to redeem himself and become the greatest wizard in modern history. Formed the Order a few decades back, but I think you only joined up in the one that started up again three and a half years ago."

He nodded.

My voice was calm, as if I was telling a roomful of children a story. "Vigilante group and everything. The entire group, though, trusted Dumbledore to pull them through each time, even when, no, _especially_ when anything approaching hope was lost. He had a neat and tidy moral code, and saved a lot of lives in his days as leader. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Your point?"

"Dumbledore died," I said coldly. The kids run scared and wet themselves in fear. "We were lost children out in the wild, but we won. We didn't do it cleanly. We were fighting for the right cause, though. Fighting to avoid oppression and the decimation of half the magical population, targeted simply because of who they were born to!"

"We won," Kingsley said bitterly. "Because of that, that makes us above the law?"

"This isn't about law or justice for either of us, Kingsley! The purebloods that survived the war, or those who sat it out, have poisoned you." He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Okay, no no, they haven't poisoned you. They've just awakened the dormant side of Kingsley Shacklebolt, the one that just wasn't there during the war. Where's the calm man who told us all that everything was going to be okay?"

He said nothing, and I continued. "I thought I had you pegged. You're the righteous man. No sins to your name, but you'll do what you have to in order to protect your family." Here, he tensed. Uh-oh. "You joined the Order because Fudge was being ignorant, and you wanted to protect your wife and son. You stayed on because of your faith in what we were fighting for, and you were with us, ready to die if it meant winning the war."

"My position is not an easy one," he said gravely. "What we were fighting for? It _was_ a good cause. However, there are a lot of things we did in the war that were no better than the actions taken by those we were fighting. I cannot abide by that."

"But you could," I implored. "This is corruption. Again. The purebloods slipped through the cracks and they're doing their damnedest to make us suffer for our victory. We could've curbed them. Together! I thought you would've changed the Ministry for the better from that chair, but you've changed. Did they kill your family, Kingsley? Did they force your hand?"

His eyes went cold, and he refilled his drink. "My wife and son have been dead for two months, I'll have you know. Neither side was responsible. Car accident. A Muggle death."

"And when they died, you decided to play the coward who turns on all of his friends?"

He didn't get visibly angry. The calm man was still present. "I decided to play the just man. The righteous man. I am an Auror first and foremost, and I was there when Fudge's Ministry was running on dishonesty and dirty money. Even if I didn't have the Wizengamot pressuring me into doing something drastic, I still would. I want to have an honest tenure. Better to end my days an honest man with the sins of his cowardly actions on his shoulders. I'm tired and my family's dead. I want to go on to the next life free of regret. The honest law is the only truth."

His reasoning ticked me off. He didn't have to throw the rest of us under the bus. I said so, followed by, "What about you, Kingsley? Best I remember, you were there torturing and killing with the rest of us."

He sighed. "I will be one of the last to trial. Azkaban doesn't have Dementors anymore, so maybe my remaining days in prison will be in peace. After what feels like decades of self-loathing, I welcome it."

"But I don't plan on having a cell beside yours!" I said fiercely. "Your inner peace, while no doubt all you've got left now, is nothing compared to the peace and harmony of me and mine. What about the happy ending, Kingsley? What about marrying the first redhead that comes along and making a few sprogs together?"

"I don't like redheads," he said dryly.

Despite myself, I chuckled. "War's over. We should be at peace, but we're not. Doesn't sit right."

"What would you have me do, Harry? Throw all the laws, even the ones that make sense, out the window? Ignore that, despite their status as Death Eaters, real human beings ended up dead because of us. They were still British and they were our kinsmen once, divided only by ideals."

"Murdering rapists and thieving psychopaths led by an immortal snake-loving orphan who didn't get enough hugs as a child, you mean."

There was a moment of total comprehension on both sides of the desk. Two pillars in a storm, standing fast and never wavering in their convictions. Kingsley, a man with nothing to lose looking for final peace in honest justice. Me, a man who had won the war his own way, a war that deserved to be put to rest once and for all. Kingsley nodded once, and I returned the gesture.

He wouldn't fight me.

He downed a glass of the amber liquid in its entirety, pouring the rest of the bottle into the empty glass. "I suppose this is where it ends, then? I should warn you that my replacement will undoubtedly be from the Wizengamot's best stock. Not some Muggleborn like Cresswell who you think could introduce a new idealism into the place."

"Maybe you could leave a note?" I offered. He cracked a grin, and for the first time since I'd met the man, he let out a booming laugh, matched by my own subdued ones. The logical part of me was hammering its appeal into my head: wouldn't killing Kingsley cause more problems? Would I have to start another war, this time playing the anarchist? The counterargument: Killing Kingsley would be unfortunate, but I had to. I needed justice.

I stood up and raised my wand. "I'm sorry, Kingsley."

He couldn't abide by the fact that we won the war the wrong way. I couldn't abide by the fact he was pissing all over our victory like he was.

"We are all just victims of our pressure in the end, eh?" He raised his glass in a toast. "Drastic actions caused by our own need to sleep better at night. You for your friends, me for justice and self-peace. Under pressure... Just like that Muggle song..." He started humming, each note matching the pounding in my ribcage. He paused his humming to take a sip of his drink, and my wand twitched.

_CRACK._

The glass exploded in his face, a large shard blasting through his left eye, the power of my spell sending the glass sailing through his brain and out the other side. The shard rode a spurt of blood out of the top of his head, embedding itself in the throne-chair behind him. Death was instantaneous. He slumped forward onto the desk, and I could see his shattered skull and brain tissue for a moment, before blood and other fluids poured out of the exit wound and onto the desk.

Ever had a moment where you realise there were other options you could've taken? There's an immediate phrase that springs to mind:

Oh _fuck_.

Hermione was going to castrate me. She was absolutely fucking right. I should've just thought things over and-

No. Waiting would've achieved nothing. Kingsley was convinced in what he was doing. He wasn't going to stop his quest for inner piece. Killing him, though... it was...

I felt sick. I was sick. Vomited right in my lap. Smelled horrifying and looked like spaghetti. I hadn't eaten spaghetti in a few weeks. Tonks had made it. Correction: Tonks had tired to make it. Failed miserably, had to have me remake it. Think I may've hurt her feelings by pointing out that pasta needed boiling water in order to cook. Must've hurt Kingsley's too, what with killing him and all.

He was a friend. A family man. A coward. A traitor. Tried to make the best of a bad situation for his own inner peace. Did I respect that? Maybe. I just killed the man, so my respect might be lacking.

Dead Kingsley. Dead dead dead.

Not still-alive Kingsley. Dead. Exterminated. Glass through the brain.

Fire. I needed... fire. Memory Charms too. I'd need a Bulstrode Abode, a Lockhart, a Hermione on McLaggen or two, and a series of the most useful of the Unforgivables. Pure torture got old after a while when there were more creative options, and there were other ways to kill a cat without wasting all that energy.

Fleeting thought of McGonagall in S&M gear. More creative ways to torture people, indeed.

Vomited again. Cleaned myself up with a wave of my wand. Good wand. Killed quite a few people in its time, though gravity killed that one guy in the Battle of Hogwarts. I automatically stood up, ignoring the body. No alarms. No sudden Ministry emergency beacon flashing and telling the world that I had just now deposed the Minister with a glass of scotch. My own alarm ward hadn't been tripped. Ol' secretary gal was still snoozing. Still lunchtime, too. Kingsley's half-eaten sandwich was beside his body. Compared to his previous sandwiches, it looked unappealing. His wife must've made sandiwiches for him back when she was alive, and back when he was alive too. At the same time.

Still lunch? I checked my watch to confirm.

I realised the watch was a possible conspirator against me. Thoughts were scattered. Twenty minutes to burn down the Ministry and make it look an accident. I knew how to get out of this mess. It would be tricky, but I'd wager that the Wizengamot would just be happy to have their own man in the chair Kingsley was killed in. Well, I think that a new chair would be in order after I burnt this office down. I could do it.

I breathed in deeply. I had made things worse, but there was a solution. There always was. I, in the immortalised words of the recently deceased Kingsley Shacklebolt, was a child of prophecy with luck on my side. I'd need to chat to my goblin friends when I was done here. They'd have a suggestion or two if I gave them some gold. Goblins loved gold. Goblins loved playing with gold.

That day, I played with fire. I was still under quite a bit of pressure, to put it mildly. I had something in mind, though. Something to hide everything. Something to give me and my friends a chance towards a better ending. If I had to do it singlehandedly, I'd do it. As long as it takes.

No pressure.

..::..-.-..::..

_The Next Day: How Ant-Like Everybody Seems_

The day before had ultimately ended unproductively after my visit to Lavender Brown's tower. The head of the DMLE, Williamson, had yelled at Robards all afternoon for some reason, and I suspected an evaluation was approaching. I knew from experience those meant total work stoppage for a week or two, and I couldn't afford to lose time in the Constellation Killer case. If our killer found out we were onto his pattern involving the zodiac ritual, any potential hope of gauging his progress via dead Muggles could be lost. He or she might even start dropping bodies faster if they knew we on their trail. I wondered somewhat arrogantly if the fact that I was the lead Auror on this case would make them change tactics - either becoming overconfident or skittish.

Before I would brave the Auror Office for the day, I paid a visit to my goblin contact Loki. He was surly and still ungrateful even after Selwyn's generous donation earlier in the month. You know, the usual.

We sequestered ourselves in a small office, and he opened his mouth before I could. "What do you want?" he said brusquely. "Having trouble renewing your contract?"

The spell I had used on him a few years back bound the memories of our little reality shift inside of his head, and he could only consciously access them in my presence. Since I was the only one he could talk to about it, he made it his personal mission to throw the injustice of me violating his mind in my face every time we talked, with predictable results.

"Shut up and take your gold," I snapped. "I need you to do me a favour and gather a nice pile of ritual books involving the zodiac, or anything related."

"Is that all?"

"No. I may need you to find me a type of knife in the nearby future if we come up empty ourselves."

"What kind of knife?" he asked curiously.

"The kind that stabs people and kills them dead, and may be related to an upcoming zodiac ritual," I retorted. "Thanks for helping out, Loki. You're a pal."

He said nothing as I exited the room. Loki had little to no backbone, enjoyed my gold and didn't mind a good mystery. The bestest goblin spy a boy could ask for.

My official business in Gringotts today was to check up on my overseas estates (Loki just happening to be my account manager), so I got no suspicious looks from any other goblins as I made my way out of the bank. With a long-suffering sigh, I Apparated from the bank's entrance and arrived at the Atrium, bracing myself for another morning at our stellar department.

When I arrived to find Dover watching Williamson huff around the office and glare at everything, I knew that bracing myself wouldn't help one bit. I collapsed into my cubicle chair and awaited further instructions from Dover, and not getting any, I briefly entertained the thought of napping my way to lunch. Lunch with Remus...

Now _there_ was something to look forward to.

..::..-.-..::..

This time, lunch with Remus was not preceded by lunch with Tonks, but the skies were clearer and tea we were drinking tasted more like actual tea and less like piss. I briefly wondered when I had become such a tea snob while Remus showed me some of my father's old textbooks. It was nice to Remus's face relax a bit and the years leave his eyes as he went on about my father's 'Operation: Animagus'. I don't think the feeling translated to my own face.

He caught my expression and put the Charms textbook down. "I wasn't aware that this was boring you, Harry."

I gave him a tired smile. "Sorry. It's like last time we did lunch and I'm trying not to let my stress get to me, you know? Don't want to say anything... harsh."

"You do indeed look a lot more stressed today," Remus observed in a manner eerily similar to Lavender's yesterday. I guess I was just having one of those months.

"Politics, workload, lack of anything resembling personal time," I surmised. "Probably haven't been entirely happy go-lucky Harry lately."

"God forbid," Remus muttered. "Anything else?"

"The pressure's starting to bug me, actually," I said. "More than just the workload and my lack of a social life, it's something... off. Entirely. Like everything feels wrong." And, to add to that, it was a different kind of wrong. Not like a renewal feeling, where my status as the reality shift's creator allowed me to _feel_ the unravelling reality as the renewal approached. "I've been telling myself it's just been pressure, but there's something draining me. I haven't felt like this for a long time. I just wonder if I'm about to do something drastic." Again. Shifted reality once - what will I do next? Travel through time?

Remus paused. "Life is like that sometimes," he said sagely. "I think you're lacking something. We all have places to go to relax and forget about our worries for a while. Where's yours?"

I thought about it. Really, the only places I frequented these days were the office, Grimmauld Place, the Leaky Cauldron and... somewhere warm and kind of homely. Small place, but with good company. The answer sprang to mind immediately.

"Tonks," I said. Remus stiffened across the table, but I ignored him. "I've uh... been kinda distracted lately. Maybe I've ignored her a little. It's..."

"By your own admission, with Ron off playing Quidditch and Hermione in France, Tonks would be your best friend?"

"Well it's certainly not Dover." Even if Ron and Hermione were around, I wouldn't take Tonks out of the best friend column.

He looked pained, but spoke anyway, "Maybe you should grovel. Take the first night off you can find and ask for forgiveness. Tell her you're sorry for being a prat."

I nodded, and he continued. "You know I'm right. This pressure you're feeling may be work-related, but I'd bet there's a lot of guilt weighing you down. I should know..."

"I think you may be right."

"I have my moments." The poor guy looked like I had asked if I could screw his wife or something, and lunch ended shortly afterwards.

Returning to work after lunch, I was immediately accosted by a euphoric Dover.

"Harry man, we're free for the rest of the weekend," he said happily.

"We are?"

His grin widened. "Williamson got so fed up with Robards that he ordered an immediate review of the entire Auror Office! Barring emergencies, of course, we're done for the weekend and will probably spend the week doing nothing! Isn't that great?"

"What about the case?"

"Oh fuck it, man. Can you honestly say you've got some new interesting lead out of that book that smells disturbingly like Trelawney?"

I said nothing.

"I know, right? Let's get outta here and go to the place with the good fish."

"With the strippers?" I clarified. "Mate, that your mind is on the food instead of the ladies tells me one thing-"

"Yeah, fuck off."

We both laughed for a moment, and I sobered up first. "I might head home and pretend to do work there. I'd rather solve this case as soon as possible rather than deal with more dead Muggles."

Dover shrugged. "Your loss, mate. See you on Monday."

"Wait!" I said. Remus had advised me to take the first night off I could and go see Tonks. It was a sound idea. "Do the trainees get today off too?"

"Harry, it's Saturday. The trainees don't have classes today."

"I hadn't realised. Thanks, Mac."

I took the stairs as per usual, mulling over my next move. The whole grovelling thing looked like an attractive option. I genuinely felt the need to apologise. I may've had the time and I could've used the distraction, but there was something more. I didn't want to let her down. I felt like I had done that enough over the past week or so when work started piling up. I was there for her on the anniversary of Ted and Andromeda's deaths, but one night of joking around and reminiscing over happier times wasn't a cure-all for the feelings associated with the death of your remaining family.

I suddenly felt selfish. Moreso than usual, anyway. By the time I reached the Atrium, I had made my decision. In a choice between a cosy little flat with Tonks and a big abandoned townhouse with Kreacher, I'd choose the former every time, unless I wanted someone to cook for me. Kreacher's patented meat-pie may be maggot-y, but at least it was more edible than Tonks's all-too-yummy charcoal lasagne.

I Apparated to the stairwell of her flat's building. Taking the stairs to the top floor gave me time to fret over whether or not I should be bringing something like flowers as an apology. If I were apologising to Ron or Hermione, some junk food for the former and a new book for the latter would do fine. But Tonks was different. I couldn't put my finger on why or how, but she was. She was certainly a more attractive woman than Hermione...

But perhaps admitting that wouldn't make for a good apology. I might as well let her hex me or something.

Eventually, I had to screw up my courage enough to knock on her door. The woman that answered looked a little peaky, her hair was darker than I was accustomed to.

"Wotcher, Harry," she said. "What's going on?"

I flicked my wrist, caught my wand out of its holster and twirled it around, presenting the handle end to Tonks. "Would this apology end better for the both of us if I allowed you to hex me for being a prat first?"

She darted forward and grabbed my wand, twirling it in her fingers. "Maybe. Depends." She grinned a little, her hair unconsciously brightening to a more familiar pink. "How is that you suddenly found the time for me?"

Okay, maybe I deserved that. "I found it, and that's all that matters," I said. "Okay, that's not true. All that matters is that I didn't play you fair. You're my friend. You're my best friend, even. You're a priority."

"Harry..." She sighed. "I don't hold it against you. I know that being an Auror isn't the most glamorous of jobs-"

"But-"

She held up a hand. "I was in your shoes once, and I get it. Maybe I don't get why you haven't realised that I'm here if you need me, but that's okay. It's just one of those things you do."

I wished she had hexed me. "Just one of those things... One I should rectify. Immediately, if you'll let me. Hex me if you want, but be sure not to use anything that'll affect my hands. I may intend to cook you dinner tonight, and if you don't want to taste a fair approximation of evenly cooked food..."

She let out a giggle. "I'll hold onto your wand for the rest of the afternoon, then. You can help me correct some appalling essays no doubt written by brainless little Gryffindors."

"I am sorry," I said honestly.

"Then prove it," she replied, eyes softening.

She lead me into her warm little flat and set about torturing me with trainee homework. I allowed myself to get lost in the easy camaraderie our conversations carried. The feeling of pressure lessened. Only once or twice when I wasn't laughing or enjoying Tonks's company, I felt the pressure in the back on my mind.

It wasn't guilt. It wasn't contract-related. But it was something, something I couldn't put my finger on.

Hours later I fell asleep on Tonks's couch at her behest, the twelve signs of the zodiac dancing in my mind.

..::..-.-..::..

To be continued in Chapter Three: Ten.

..::..-.-..::..

Two down, three to go. Several plot threads come to a head in chapter three, though most of the action is in chapters four and five.


	3. Chapter Three: Ten

Thanks to all who are reading, reviewing, or adding me to alerts/favourites or communities. This chapter, I must warn, is a monster, nearly 16000 words long. I think the next two will be shorter, but I wrote my chapters not for length but for where they started and where they ended up by the end. Thus, this chapter just took a lot of words to get to where I wanted it to end up. Enjoy.

..::..-.-..::..

Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. This fanfiction is a non-profit thing written for enjoyment of myself and my readers.

Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs.

Written by Matt Silver

..::..-.-..::..

Previously on Breach of Contract: Post-HBP AU. Harry Potter won the war. He didn't do it cleanly, and desperate actions were taken in those desperate times. Those at the Ministry and on the Wizengamot who did not approve of these actions in hindsight started a witch-hunt. After a personal blow, Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt betrayed the Order and his old friends.

For his betrayal, Harry killed him. This action was less of an action taken to fix things and more of one of justice, but it happened and the pressure drove Harry to make things right. To prevent total devastation of those closest to him, Harry shifted reality and bound it to a contract, a contract that must be renewed periodically. Failure to renew before the deadline is reached will only end badly.

Years later, in early November, Auror Potter got a case about a wizard murdering Muggles. In late November, the case took a dark turn as it was revealed there might be a ritual at hand - each dead Muggle had been branded with a sign of the zodiac corresponding with the sign they were born under. A rebirthing ritual is on the cards, and, despite the politics plaguing his job, Harry and the Aurors are on the trail. Meanwhile, Harry reaffirms his friendship with Tonks, while things remain frosty with Remus.

..::..-.-..::..

Chapter Three: Ten

..::..-.-..::..

_About Two Weeks Later: The Tenth_

"Mornin'," Dover greeted through a mouth full of toast. He fell in step beside me, bundled up in a heavy black cloak to ward off the cold. Due to some winter season budget cuts, the Magical Maintenance Department had gone on strike again, shutting off the heat to most of the Ministry, the exception being to the offices of those they liked most. Even with the fireplaces connected to the Floo Network, the Atrium was still unnaturally cold. Robards's charming personality had ensured our own office would stay at arctic temperatures for the next few months.

But I wasn't thinking about that being the reason Dover was bundled up inside. My eyes were on the toast.

"Didn't feel like eating at home?" I asked. In response, he rolled his eyes and took a large bite, teeth gnashing through the raspberry jam applied on the toast in thick layers. A squirt of the jam went flying, hitting the Atrium floor unceremoniously.

"Just woke up," Dover mumbled. "Realised I was a bit late. You late too?"

"Had to go pay a visit to one of my contacts." Loki, in fact. The little goblin had not yet procured me any information about the Constellation Killer's upcoming rebirthing ritual, which annoyed me to no end. I did not like having all the answers.

Dover polished off the slice of toast, procuring another jam-splattered piece from his robes. Before taking his first bite, he glanced at my face. Frowning, he said, "You skip breakfast or something?"

Raspberry jam. I see a cool lake in the dry desert, though the logical part of me sees the small waves of the delicious red jam spread with a thick knife over the toasted bread- oh dammit.

Warning bells rang in my head. Time for another renewal. Depending on when the blue or the general feeling of unease would start, I would have the next two weeks or so to renew my contract. I knocked a week off the estimation - waiting too long for the deadline to approach would be... bad. I shivered.

Dover caught that too, but said nothing as we made our way to the stairwell.

The contract renewal deadlines did not have a set precedent most of the time. The median time between renewals was usually three to four months, though I had had one last as long as six months and another as short as two weeks, the latter back in the spring of '99. Back then, I had a few more Death Eaters walking around, and making them disappear was a bit easier when most of them did their own disappearing acts without me trying to help them out. I wasn't expressly worried this time - I had procured a list of morally dubious types who had frequented Selwyn's old whorehouse, and it wouldn't be too hard to take care of, barring other factors like work and Tonks.

I pushed the thoughts relating to contract renewals to the back of my mind with more force than necessary. Work took precedence right now.

It had been two weeks since we had discovered the ninth body out at Chelsea, and through it, the beginnings of a pattern with all signs pointing to a nasty little ritual. Unfortunately, a throwdown between Head Auror Gawain Robards and DMLE head Williamson had taken a week of productive work away from us and replaced it with a tedious review of the entire office's actions over the past few years.

I had performed some pretty sick tortures during the war myself, but even I could not hope to create as much despair and pain as that exhaustive review did. With most of the office still out in South America dealing with the current goblin rebellion, the horror had only increased.

The whole debacle had done nothing for my frustration levels. We had lost time that could've been spent chasing the Constellation Killer, and if it weren't for Tonks, I would've gone a tiny bit mad and killed someone.

Grovelling to Tonks for my poor behaviour came easily enough, and we had been out and about several times at my insistence. Things were good - Tonks wasn't much for grudges and she knew I had eaten a bit of humble pie over the last two weeks, so we reconciled easily enough.

Dover and I arrived at the Auror Office to no applause, but our immediate superior Terry Boot had left a thoughtful gift on our desks in the form of a mountain of paperwork. Sitting on my uncomfortable little wooden chair, I was about to tackle a particularly dangerous set of forms related to wand regulations when Dover let out a small surprised hum.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Just thinking, actually. About our killer. What he is..."

I made an amused noise. "Wizard, mate. Muggle-hater, probably." Which about narrowed it down to seventy-five percent of the magical population, of course.

"No, not that. I was thinking about how he-"

Whatever Dover was going to say was cut off by a pink paper aeroplane soaring our way. It circled around the cubicles belonging to Audrey Ravenwood and Rachel MacDonald, arriving at the small opening between my cubicle and Dover's. It hovered in the air, pointing its nose at me and back to where it came from.

"I think it wants us to follow it," Dover said. We stood, donned our cloaks, and followed the enchanted memo into the stairwell. Once it was sure we were alone, the memo straightened out and propelled itself into my hands.

I read it aloud to Dover. "Tenth body found in Islington. Old accounting building. It says we're going to leave there in ten seconds. From the desk of Terry Boot."

Ten seconds meant Portkey, so I lashed out a hand and grabbed ahold of Dover's shoulder. The Portkey activated, a sharp jerking sensation grasping me by the navel and a whirling blue colour flashing in front of my eyes. The herky-jerky nature of those damn things made for a rough landing.

"Dirty trick," I muttered, disentangling myself from Dover. "I must be getting old or something, because I know I hate those damn things, not to mention that our fucking killer uses them to dump his bodies-"

"So sorry to inconvenience you Potter."

I froze, and it had nothing to do with the fact we were on an upper floor of an old building with broken windows letting in a cold wind. Robards stood before us, calmly chewing on the end of his pipe, his gaze calculating and more than a little annoyed. I found myself glancing down at his stubby little legs - I rarely saw the Head Auror outside of his office and behind that desk, so it was an odd sight to behold.

"Couldn't you have, you know, just told us to come quickly?" I said.

"Needed a private minute with you," Robards replied. "I see Auror Dover tagged along."

"Not by choice," my partner mumbled. "Why the portkey?"

Robards chuckled dryly. "You two have no doubt noticed the recent hold-ups our little office is going through? Williamson poking his nose in and all."

"How could we not?" I asked. I quickly surveyed the room we'd arrived in. It was large and open, with solid concrete floors and no extravagant colouring to be had outside of a slightly less muted tone of grey on one wall. An office sat to our right, recent activity having kicked up a mighty layer of dust in the area. At my look, Robards nodded - the tenth body was no doubt found in that little office.

"I gather everyone else is taking the conventional routes here?" Dover said.

Robards nodded. "Like I said, I needed a minute alone. Boot's running interference." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I'm running to the press. I've been pushed into a corner by Williamson and the other department heads, and this is my best bet for controlling the situation. If Cresswell gets enough letters of complaint, I'm out of the job." He snorted. "Apparently I'm lacking a certain character needed for a job of this calibre."

To be fair to Williamson, Robards _was_ lacking in focus on the job itself. There was a point years ago in which Robards crossed from one camp into another - the first camp labelling him a proper Head Auror and the second camp being a training camp for amateur politicians. It didn't make him entirely horrible at his job, but I disliked the way he went about it.

"What are you going to say?" Dover asked. "You're going to tell the press that there's a wizard killing Muggles, explain in detail that the killings are ritualistic, but that's all you have to run on, really. Come on, Robards, what's the spin? Do you know something we don't?"

"No, but _you_ do," Robards said pointedly. "The article will be on the front page of the _Prophet _by Saturday. I've been in talks with Max Jensen since a few days ago, and we've decided that you two, as the lead Aurors on the case, are either going to find a lead or make a perfectly convincing one up instead."

I let out an exasperated sign. Dover rolled his eyes. "And if we don't?"

"Then I'll make a lead up and you'll look like fools if my little fiction gets disproved by the actual case," Robards said calmly. "Now then - if we're quite done chatting about this direct order I've given you, and if you will please remember our discussion just two weeks ago, that would be just brilliant. Your fellow Aurors will be here soon, so get to the investigating. Cheers."

With that, he Apparated off to greener pastures.

"I care so little about all this that I want to jump out that window," Dover quipped after a moment's silence. "We could solve all of his problems and make him Minister for Magic, but he would still want us to propel him up to Supreme Minister, Lord of Western Sorcery or some rot."

I snorted, definitely agreeing with his sentiments. If it wasn't for the whole 'saving people thing' I had, plus the convenience of access to knowledge of the scum worth killing come renewal time, I'd think the Ministry wasn't worth working for.

"Forget it," I said. "Cast the usual spells, and let's get looking at another dead Muggle."

"Highlight of my morning," Dover said dryly.

"And for Merlin's sake, don't step in his blood this time."

The dead man in the next room was nothing special. Tanned and tall, young and somewhat buff. Big stab hole in his chest. No doubt there would be a small zodiac sign branded into the underside of his flesh like the previous victims. The Healer responsible for our office's autopsies, Pierce, had confirmed the presence of each mark on each previous body fitting with the conjectured pattern - the sign burnt on the underside of the flesh matched the one the victim had been born under. There were three signs left until all twelve had been found - Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

Checking the body, once again pushing back the little love affair with blood my addled mind wanted me to have, I could safely strike Capricorn off the list. It was an odd little symbol - sort of a 'v', a 'j' and an 'o' all jumbled together. I informed Dover.

"Ten down, two to go," he said grimly. If what I had learned from Lavender Brown was even close to correct, the completion of our killer's ritual would culminate in a 'rebirth of untold power'. So, you know, all kinds of bad if we're that unlucky. In the hands of a genius, such a power could... well, all kinds of bad could happen.

"What's his name?" I asked, taking a step away from the body.

"Don't know. Just wait 'till Boot tells us," Dover replied, suddenly spacing off for the moment.

The tenth victim's name, it turned out, was Marco Marcone. Marco was an Italian tourist whose idea of a holiday involved cold and dreary London for a few weeks. I'm sure the brutal stabbing hadn't been included in the brochure of activities he would be enjoying in the city this holidays.

When we left the scene an hour later, Boot was in the process of organising permission from Marco's parents for us to perform an official post-mortem examination. But I knew Pierce wouldn't find anything new. Even worse, Robards's attempt to save his career would definitively tip of the killer that we were on to him, that is if he or she didn't bloody know already. The presence of a tenth body either proved the killer was ignorant, arrogant, or just plain determined to keep up the killings while using the same method of disposal.

Ten down, two to go.

Dover had been quiet most of the morning. That in itself was a portent of doom or something, but it was thankfully over after lunch when he started to twitch oddly. His foot started tapping. I chanced a glance across the way from my cubicle, watching as he furiously scrawled something down on a spare bit of parchment. His face was alight and his grin was in full force. Either he had thought of a particularly vulgar joke that needed to be recorded for some reason, or he had had an idea of sorts.

"What's with the grin?" I asked, dropping my quill and leaning back in my chair. It dug into my back and the wobbly legs protested the action. Times like these I wish I had added better office chairs to the contract when I had shifted reality.

My partner's grin widened, and he stopped writing. "Remember a couple of hours ago when I was wondering what kind of guy our killer is?"

"I said wizard, and then you were about to say something before Robards's note showed up."

"Right." He nodded. "I'm betting easy gold on our guy being a pureblood, of course. They have access to all these old books with the obscure and old fashioned rituals, most definitely including the one our killer's using."

"Lavender had a ritual book at Hogwarts," I reminded him. "They can't just be restricted to the stodgy old families."

"Yeah, but the Browns themselves are pretty damn old and pureblood, Harry. Not only that, but Trelawney's ancestor was half-blood, and she had the Sight. That would've made her darling enough for the purebloods to pay attention to, and I'd bet they gave her the book."

"Okay... Go on..."

"He's a pureblood. A killer who wants to give himself a little power boost via rebirthing ritual. Kills Muggles to do it, of course. They're easier targets and basically cattle to most wizards, and our killer's not an exception. Most families have their own specialty in wands too, and while that may be important, our killer could just simply make his own special wand to brand the victims with."

"The wand is bound to the ritual," I said. "The signs may not be entirely magical, but the wand itself that burnt them in _should_ be important..."

"But like I said, he can just make his own wand. But, he can't do the same for the knife. The knife is an important component. Probably the most important. Enchanted blades collect things - the blood of our dead Muggles, for example. You once told me that you had a sword made out of goblin steel that collected basilisk venom, and the principle is the same."

"So the knife collects the blood of each sacrifice, the wand would be used to brand the bodies, and some kind of bond is formed between the killer, his murder weapon and the zodiac astrology magic stuff. He dumps the bodies because all he needs is the blood, and not the body. It's a sound theory, but it's not really new news, I'm afraid."

Dover kept on grinning. "I just told you that the purebloods sometimes have their own brand of wands. They also have their own kind of ritual knives. Enchanted ritual knives. It's not exactly common knowledge these days, but if we identify the knife used..."

"Identify the knife? Mac, we've been trying to do that for a month!"

"But I just had my idea!" Dover said proudly. He stood up, gathering up his cloak and the parchment he had been scribbling on. I was so distracted by the dark red jam stain on his cloak that I almost missed his exit.

"Wait!" I called. "Is this so-called lead just to appease Robards and make it look like we're doing fine, so you can curry favour, or this an actual idea?"

He shrugged. "A bit of both. I'll go present this to the boss, and you can go chat to one of your mysterious contacts. Ask 'em about pureblood ritual knives."

Dover sauntered off towards Robards's office, and I sat in my little cubicle and frowned. Part of me was relieved that he was showing some initiative and we might catch a break, but a larger part of me was wondering why Loki hadn't come through for me this time around. I abandoned my uncomfortable chair and headed for the stairs, catching sight of Tonks exiting Robards's office. Her hair was tied back in a dark and professional-looking ponytail for all of three seconds after leaving the office, soon reverting to a pastel pink colour when she spotted me.

I waited until she was within earshot, before saying, "Robards threatening you too?" with a raised eyebrow.

She laughed and shook her head, and I said, "Come on, I'll walk you back down."

She nodded, and we made our way to the stairs. At a sedate pace, we would have five minutes to chat.

"So..."

"Not telling," she said impishly.

"Bad news, then?"

Her hair brightened - a Tonks tell I recognised as her being in good cheer. "Great news, actually! But that would be telling and I'm not going to."

"I'm still coming over tomorrow night, right? How 'bout you tell me then."

"I don't know..." she said coyly. "I could hold this over your head for a while. A curious Harry Potter... Hmm..."

I rolled my eyes. "A curious Harry Potter ends in a tussle with a Basilisk or some such rot."

"Well by all means!" she said with a hearty laugh. A trill of delight shot through me - it was always a very good indication of Tonks's happiness if it involved her trying to double entendre me to death. Of course, she hadn't come close to killing me since I had passed out that one time from an overabundance of blushing back in my sixth year, but I was older and more wizened now, and I would let her have her fun.

"I didn't quite mean it like that," I said, perhaps waggling an eyebrow as I did. "But maybe if you drag this out long enough, I'll have to tie you down and make you tell me."

"Is that so?" Her own eyebrow, curiously dark while her hair stayed bright, was raised. "I'm not saying it's impossible, but how's little ol' you going to even tie little ol' me down? I've got a few years as an Auror on you, hero."

"Killed Voldemort here," I said with a false air of arrogance. "By accordance of the old ways, I probably could've accepted the eight hundred or so marriage contracts offered to me after the war. Seven hundred and ninety-nine of the women would end up concubine slaves, of course."

"And how would that affect me? I never offered you a marriage contract."

"No, but I'd have eight hundred women of various sizes and magical prowess to try and take you down for me."

We both shared a good laugh over the mental image of a veritable stampede of witches trying to take on Tonks. The laugh leaked over into a suggestion of a foot race back down to the Atrium. It turned out to be a brutal affair, with her sporting a small mark from my Stinging Hex, and me with a broken nose by the end, but I could safely I won the battle. She healed my nose easily enough, and our five minute walk turned into a four minute walk, a one minute race, and three minutes of just standing outside the door to the Atrium, enjoying each other's company.

"So..."

"Yeah." I cleared my throat and grinned. "Just a heads up, though, if it affects you - Robards is on a bit of a warpath about his Aurors. That may include your baby Aurors too."

She shrugged. "Will it interfere with our dinner plans tomorrow?"

"Nothing's going to interfere, even if I have to Stun Robards myself."

"Then I don't care," she said. "Robards can preen himself all he wants and try to look good in front of people who don't really care, but that's just how things are. Better than the Fudge administration, at any rate, back when Scrimgeour had the top job."

I shuddered. "I'm getting a horrible war flashback all of a sudden. A giant lion-man with a limp is trying to get me to agree with his crazy plans in order to make it look like he's actually doing something productive."

"Just how it is," Tonks confirmed. "Enough about that - you were heading somewhere important before you bumped into me. Plus, I'm fifteen minutes late for a class on disguises, and I like teaching them."

"See you later then?"

She shot me a wink. "Of course!" She went to step forward and push open the doors leading to the Atrium when she, to put it mildly, tripped over her own feet and would've broke her nose against the door handle if I hadn't have stepped forward and caught her, my arms circling around her waist.

I chuckled. "Given that you managed to race me down those stairs with your sole injury being a hex from me, I'm going to say that fall was faked."

"I'll never tell." She hoisted herself up, threw her arms around my neck, and gave me a dazzling smile. "Nice job catching me, I'll admit."

"Hazard of the occupation," I teased. Laughing, we embraced, disengaged after a moment and then headed out to the Atrium, separating only when we had to - she had to Floo back to the Auror Academy, while I had to get over to Gringotts for a meeting with my favourite goblin.

..::..-.-..::..

_The Next Day: Relationships_

The next morning was a bit of a mixed bag. Waking up slumped on my desk in my study at Grimmauld Place with a sore neck and little progress towards reading the sole book Loki had procured for me was a negative. It didn't help that half the book was written in several different languages that I could barely understand, and contrast translation via spells was about as useful and effective as pouring hot wax in my eyeballs. The one solidifying fact I had picked up from the book was a confirmation of one theory in Lavender's - the Constellation Killer's wand would have the core of an animal symbolising life or death. A unicorn, for its blood's ability to cheat death, or a phoenix, who were constantly going through rebirthing cycles, would be the most likely magical focus.

Not knowing what to actually do with that little tidbit of information was a negative.

A hot shower and the fact I didn't burn my toast were the first positives of the morning, followed by the reminder that I had a night with Tonks to look forward to. I had it all planned out too - head over to her flat, make a joke or two about whatever hairstyle Tonks was sporting (Personally, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised), make some dinner and have a blast reading through some of her trainees' less-than-stellar essays. That was a thing to look forward to, a bright light at the end of a tunnel of mixed-moodiness.

I cut my finger on a chipped mug while rooting around my cupboards for a plate. I stared at the blood dripping down my finger for about ten minutes or so. Contract renewal approaching. Shifted reality that one time nearly three years ago. Good times. Negative actions for the sake of a positive outcome. Sort-of like that pain potion that requires the vomit of the wizard it's healing to be more effective.

I arrived at the Auror Office under the watchful eye of Terry Boot, but that's no less than normal and since he didn't call me in for a chat with Robards, I ruled it as a positive thing. For the first time in a long time, Dover had beaten me to the office, and was sitting in his cubicle. He looked more clean and alert than usual, as if he had actually slept through the night instead of passing out in an alcoholic haze. Positive. He was hunched over his desk, scanning a piece of parchment.

Ignoring the sizeable pile of paperwork on it, I tossed Loki's book on my desk and tapped Dover on the shoulder.

"Anything new?" I asked him. I hadn't seen him since yesterday afternoon, his apparently brilliant breakthrough requiring him in Robards's office for the rest of the day while I dealt with an impatient Loki.

Dover nodded excitedly, abandoning his reading. At his gesture, I dragged my little chair across from my cubicle and parked it next to his. "Oh yes I do. Going out today to ruffle some feathers, and hopefully get my hands on our guy."

"Ambitious." Dover being ambitious. It fell somewhere between 'wait, what?' and 'someone shifted reality again?' on the scale of disbelief. "Fill me in, Mac. What are we doing today?"

He smiled and tapped the parchment on his desk. "This is pretty much the summary, but I have a few minutes to chat." He reached around his desk a bit, grasping at a small piece of parchment. It was a tracing of a large knife, ornate snake-like symbols on the handle. The knife's blade was wide with little spikes sticking out the sides near the tip. It was the kind of blade that could punch a hole in a person.

"This is our knife..." I breathed. Holy shit. Dover had just identified our knife. He had single-handedly brought our progress up a notch. I was surprised, to say the least. "Holy shit!"

"I know," Dover said without a trace of superiority or smugness, though I knew he was rather tempted to gloat. "There's a very very good chance our killer's ritual knife is a knife that once belonged to the Marius family."

"Who died out about ninety years ago," I said, a little more sceptical now. What can I say? I'm cagey. "There's a good chance they're just using a copy-"

"Thought of that, but I'm betting that outcome is improbable." He frowned, staring off into space. "I don't think you get it, Harry. Our killer isn't a mastermind or a Muggleborn posing as someone they're not. He's stodgy and lazy and one big ball of solid pureblood. A Muggle-killing, ritualistic bugger. He's the type that would use an old ritual knife like this one rather than use a copy, not only because the ritual might require it, but because he's set in his ways. Pureblood code says that each family's ritual knife is their own. It's the same with other things, like emblems or dinner plates. Our guy has the Marius knife, a specialised wand of some sort, a bunch of Muggles to kill and a ritual to perform. I'm sure of it."

Confidence. I liked it. "Okay, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, mostly because you're the pureblood expert of the two of us." He was. Dover's family were purebloods through and through. They exemplified neutrality and indifference when it came to Muggles, and although he was a bit of a rebel in his house, Mac shared some of their attitudes. I doubt the war helped things either - Mac had entered into the thick of things here at the Auror Office when Voldemort was running supreme, and he had once told me that the war taught him what kind of attitude he has towards them now.

_("Why do we fight because of them? They're not worth... anything.")_

To me, he wasn't a bigot. He had simply gone through hell during the war because it was fought over the ideals behind suppressing Muggles and the magical children they bore.

I shook my head, bringing myself back to the present. Things were markedly lighter and simpler in the present. "So where do we go from here, then?" I asked.

"The Marius knife," Dover gestured to the picture in my hands, "was most likely stolen when Marius Manor was raided back in the forties. The wards on the place took thirty years after Lord Marius died in order to finally fail."

"What about Gringotts? Any help there?" Gringotts meant Loki. Even if he wasn't supposedly busy with work related to the South America rebellions, I knew he could break into the right vault if need be.

Dover shook his head. "No. Lord Marius was the last left in his family, and I mean _the last_. The idiot never deigned to write himself a will, either. So when died, and he died at St Mungo's mind you, the house sealed itself up with those long-lasting wards. Because he didn't have a will, no goblins were dispatched to box up his more treasured possessions and either put them in safekeeping or send them overseas to distant relatives. Trust me, I checked the records myself - the ones the goblins own, and our archives."

He shuddered, and I winced in sympathy. The archives room the DMLE boasted was a nightmare for everyone involved, especially those who had experienced filing systems that made even a lick of sense in their lives. I had literally gotten lost in there for fourteen hours, and, just like the lifts, I had avoided the place ever since. Months ago, in one of the defining moments of our friendship, Tonks had forced a few of her Aurors-in-training to brave the room and liberate a particularly tricky bit of paperwork for me.

Dover and I recovered from our bout of post-traumatic stress disorder, but I swore I could hear Rachel MacDonald's soft sobs in the cubicle adjacent to mine. The files room had affected us all. "So the Marius knife was stolen straight out of Marius Manor with everything else decades back. I'd imagine that it would've made the rounds throughout the seedier trading areas, so why would you be ever-so-confident in finding it now?"

He fished something out of his desk drawer - a large book. "This is a codex of pureblood codes and symbols, as written in the eighteen-hundreds. Purebloods showing off whose knives are bigger, if you catch my drift, take up about thirty pages." He turned to a page and shoved the book to me. "This is the Marius knife." An exact copy of the picture he'd already shown me, in fact. He gave me a moment before flipping the pages some more. "And _this_ is the knife belonging to the Malfoy family."

"It's a lot smaller," I noted.

"Theirs was made back when they were just minor lords in France. When they came here, they wanted to look a little superior, so they adopted the Marius knife in the late forties. Lucky for them, the whole snake motif was still there."

"How the hell did you fish this up in a day?" I asked incredulously.

"Most of it was just conjecture based on the natural inadequacy issues the Malfoy family had," Dover said. "But I know that the Malfoy family had the knife when they gifted it to the newest young lady to marry into their family a few decades ago. One Narcissa Black. Narcissa gave the knife to her old family, and for years it was assumed to be locked up in Grimmauld Place."

"Mundungus," I muttered. "I told you the story about how that he pilfered most of the Black's stuff about..."

"A year ago, give or take," Dover confirmed. "It got me thinking that ol' Fletcher pawned it off. I'm off to find out who he pawned it off to. Chances are that our killer's using that knife because the Marius family is dead and their possessions scattered or wrapped in obscurity."

"And no pureblood idiot, would use their own family's knife if they didn't want to be found out easily enough," I said.

"Exactly."

"I'm in," I said immediately, ditching the book and the picture on Dover's desk. "Where's my old buddy Dung been hiding these days?"

"You're not coming," Dover said carefully. Negative. This was a negative. For him. "Robards..." Negative again! "He made it pretty clear to us, Harry. Play by his rules for a bit and nothing bad will happen. Right now, he wants one of us to actually do all this paperwork. Since I brought the lead to him, he wants me out in the field while you stay here." Negative negative negative! "Sorry mate. Hazard of the job."

The positive for me? I'd renew the contract once I killed Dover. Or Robards. Either way, somebody was going to die.

I narrowed my eyes. "I'll assume that Jensen's article in tomorrow's _Prophet _is going to mention this little lead of yours?"

Dover looked apologetic. "I've scored us a couple of weekends off after the holiday season's over, if it's any consolation. Plus, we gotta catch this guy, and I'm more than capable of chasing down a few leads today. Whatever it takes, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's fine." I waved a hand to the paperwork on both mine and Dover's desks. "This'll be my morning if Robards wants it, but if need my help, even if you just need me to glare at Dung or set Kreacher on him, you send a Patronus. No exceptions."

"I am sorry," he said. "Hey, think positive! You've got a hot date with our favourite female Auror tonight!" He clapped me on the shoulder. "See you later. I'll have the Constellation Killer tied up and in Azkaban by the end of the day, you'll see."

And like that, he was off. Positive. I think. Let him solve the case if need be. I had a renewal coming up, a 'hot date' with Tonks tonight and... I glanced at the envelope on the top of my paperwork stack. Personal mail, with Remus's handwriting on the front.

Oh right, and I've got a persistent werewolf on my hands who had been trying to get in contact with me for the last two weeks. Ever since our previous meeting, in fact, and I could guess that he wanted to have another fucking discussion about my friendship with Tonks. Shouldn't he be focusing on the whole full moon thing tomorrow night or something? His priorities were skewed, I swear.

I decided priorities were overrated about an hour and a half later. Lunch was still a ways off yet, and I couldn't beg off and distract Tonks all day, as she was teaching.

"Oh, Audrey?" I called, tapping my cubicle wall.

"What is it, Harry?" Audrey Ravenwood asked through the wall. I could hear her partner, MacDonald, drop her quill to no doubt start listening in.

"I'm heading out for a personal thing, and I'm calling in that favour you owe me."

A head of braided brown locks popped over the top of my cubicle. Audrey looked at me and the parchment-y paperwork scattered on my desk with a blank expression. "Harry, I'm not on your case-"

"It's just general stuff," I said. It wasn't really, but Audrey was smart enough to compensate for her lack of knowledge on the Constellation Killer case. "It'd take me the rest of the morning, but I just had a revelation of sorts-"

"And Robards doesn't want you and Dover gone at the same time..."

"Robards doesn't want me and Dover chasing down Dover's lead at the same time," I corrected. "Look, I'll be a few hours at most, and this is really the easiest thing I could ask of you..."

"Fine," she said with a long-suffering sigh. "It's probably more exciting than what I'm doing." I heard her shuffle some parchment around. "Rachel, you can take over for me."

"Oh joy," MacDonald muttered.

I stood up and gathered my cloak, shooting Audrey a quick wink. "So how's Percy doing? You guys found somewhere else to meet up? I mean, don't get me wrong, Percy's desk looks comfortable as-"

"Shut up and go," she snapped. A little teasing in lieu of the night sweats I usually got while thinking of Percy Weasley having sex with her on his desk? Positive thing, overall.

..::..-.-..::..

Grimmauld Place was one of the best places to play an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. I knew this because a drunk Sirius had regaled me with a tale or two about the happier times growing up in this shithole, and for a bonus, he had showed me the little nooks and crannies he'd discovered as a child. On the third floor, there was a bedroom that had once been inhabited by a female Black. Since there were no dead puppies or scrawlings of 'NB + LM' on the walls, I could only assume the room was Andromeda's. There was a small cupboard that opened up to an even smaller crawlspace, perfect for hiding little things. Little things like young children playing around, or a little pile of Auror reports I had copied from the office.

Yes, Grimmauld was basically impenetrable and the reports weren't that suspicious, but I was a paranoid bugger all in all, and I felt better knowing that these were well hidden. My hidden contract renewing habits will always stay just that. Hidden.

An old file for Christian Selwyn was first on the pile, but I tossed it aside. I scoured the rest of the names - people of note to keep an eye on. Mundungus was there, though I knew I wouldn't ever go after him unless he suddenly stopped being useful or started killing people. The list seemed to be low on Death Eaters, though. A few individuals had actually only joined up in fear for the Dark Lord, and I could forgive that if there were no deaths to their name. So, Death Eaters and smugglers aside, I had few choices. I picked a file at random, scanned it, and decided.

Jack Larson-Nott hurt women. The chivalrous man inside of me would've set him straight for just the Imperius'd 'consensual' sex. But when two women ended up dead, thought to be suicides though looking more like assisted suicide by magic, it was the final straw. Unfortunately, given that the extended Nott family had survived the post-Voldemort trials and even my own reality shift intact, they flexed their muscles and had the charges against Jack dropped before me and Dover had even got him back to the Ministry.

I Apparated to St Mungo's. Jack was a Healer, a pretty damn good one too. It made him very adept at complicated magics, and all the praise heaped upon him by his superiors did wonders for his ego too. I found him loitering around the employee lounge, his 'I'm a perfect little angel' look tainted by a little smirk.

Spending the rest of the day following him covertly was tedious and unfruitful. I managed to get a clear look at his schedule for the next week or so, and although he didn't walk around twiddling his moustache and raping women in his work hours, I knew he needed to be removed from polite society. Although he was even relatively harmless when he wasn't aggressively flirting with the female staff, I could still see the undercurrent of malice in how he held himself.

Sometime in the afternoon, I found myself disguised as another Healer and pretending to read a file on the third floor when I noticed a sudden increase of activity amongst the staff.

"What's happening?" Jack demanded of the nearest female, grabbing the upper part of her arm and squeezing none-too-lightly. I was about to intervene before he got all misogynistic-y on the poor girl, but her next words made me freeze.

"There's an injured Auror coming in," she said. "Top priority. Straight from Robards."

I didn't know of any other Aurors Robards would spring top priority on right about now. Jack asked the witch for the injured Auror's identity, but I knew the answer before she opened her mouth to reply.

Dover.

I ditched my Healer disguise in the nearest bathroom, and, with no subtlety, stormed to the stairwell and ascended to the fourth floor. Once there, I found myself barrelling through a throng of bustling Healers heading to and from one direction. I followed Jack, who was busy barking orders and asking questions as he went along, around a corner and into the small ward labelled as 'Emergency'. There I spotted an injured Dover.

He was lying on a flat bed, unconscious. Half of his face was covered in dark and slimy welts. They continued down his neck, his veins dark and pronounced as if they had been inked. I winced as one Healer lifted Dover's left arm. A fair portion of the skin had been burnt off, and I could spot what looked like badly charred bone beneath the crispy flesh. Suddenly, the dark welts pulsated and started expanding in size, covering nearly three-quarters of Dover's face. As a certain Healer did a lap around the bed, my arm shot out.

"Larson!" I snapped, grasping Jack in a very painful vice-like grip similar to the one he had used on that witch earlier. "What are we dealing with?"

"Potter?" Jack hissed. A few of the other Healers had stopped their work to watch the show, while the rest were thankfully professional enough to keep healing.

"It's a curse," a rakish man spoke up. I barely restrained myself from retorting about him being really fucking obvious, but he clarified, "Don't know specifically what kind. I'd say he got in a fight he knew he couldn't win. Probably ran. The curse started in his back."

"What's it doing?" I asked, watching in morbid fascination as the welts started spreading once more, nearly enveloping Dover's entire head. "And shouldn't we be stopping _that_?"

Jack shrugged my hand off forcefully. "I was about to deal with it, thank you very much."

As a unit, Jack and three others raised their wands and started a lyrical chant. They unleashed a bright light from their wands, aimed directly at the expanding welts. The light seemingly stopped the expansion in its tracks, repelling and warding the Dark magic from becoming the dominant force. Eventually, the welts subsided until they were only covering a quarter of Dover's face, and they did not try to spread again. All that remained of the welts was a disgusting translucent slime spread over unnaturally pale skin.

"We've got it to a manageable level," the rakish Healer announced. "We've got a Mediwitch getting us the potions, but the rest will be up to him."

I nodded sharply. Jack glared at me before stalking off, but I ignored him.

I was pissed off now. Was this the work of the Constellation Killer? Had Dover come a little too close? All I knew was that my friend had been hurt and I hadn't been there to prevent it. I hadn't been there at all. Because of bullshit politics and Robards being Robards. Not only that, but once I had escaped the office, I had immediately gone into work towards my next contract renewal. I should not have let the contract renewal get in the way. I had known before I had come here that Jack Larson was a rapist and a murderer. I didn't need to stalk him all day like this. I could've waited a few days, took the first opportunity I could, and killed him.

But I didn't. I just hoped I could find Dover's attacker and alleviate the guilt.

"Wake him up," I ordered.

A female Healer, one of those kind-faced types, clucked like an angry chicken. "You can't possibly-"

"I can and I will," I said coldly. I held my right hand out, ready to catch my wand from its holster. "He passed out because of shock, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"And he's in a stable enough condition to be awake for twenty seconds?"

"Of course, but-"

"I'm an Auror, Miss, and this is an ongoing investigation. If the lead Healer here can wake him for twenty seconds, I will get what I need and let you finish saving his life."

The female Healer glared thunderously. "I am the lead Healer here, and-"

"No, he is now." I pointed at the rakish man. "Healer..."

"Hunt."

The female Healer looked ready to protest again, so I flicked my wand into my hand and pointed it at the wall behind her. "Ten seconds. That's all I need. I'm going to use Legilimency to scan the most recent memories in his mind. All I need to do is find out where he was when he got attacked. Please."

Hunt nodded shortly, tapping Dover on the head with his stubby wand. Instantly, Dover was upright, pale and his entire body rigid.

And he was screaming in pure agony.

I pushed a stupefied Healer out of the way and grabbed Dover by the shoulders.

"Mac!" I shouted. His shocked eyes bore into my own. "Keep looking at me for eight more seconds, and you can go back to sleep. Think! Think about what happened. Think about the place where you were. Now!"

I brushed the surface of his mind. There was a flash of something dark in my mind momentarily, but I caught his surface thoughts. He was having a drink with Mundungus Fletcher. He was back in the office this morning, talking to me. He was Apparating to an old junkyard. Another flash and he was pressuring Dung again. One more, and I was watching a stout man fire curses at Dover's shield. I felt his pain as the shield faltered and his arm was suddenly on fire. Dover went to escape, clutching the crisped arm. A curse hit him in the back, and his Apparation was painful and unfocused.

I pulled back and let him drop back to the bed. "_Stupefy!_" I intoned, letting him have a bit of peace for now. His screams still echoed in my head. Nobody moved for a second, and I shuffled my thoughts. The junkyard. The man who Dover had fought. Hopefully, the attacker would still be there.

"He Splinched himself," I said hollowly. "He'll need a new hip bone."

The rakish Healer whose name had already escaped me nodded. "If you've got somewhere to be..."

I did. The nearest Apparation point was a ten minute walk if I took the stairs, but I was chock full of adrenaline and rage, so it was more of a four minute run with three innocent bystander injuries. I didn't care. I was in a zone that I hadn't entered for a while now. My inability to be there for a friend and laying down and letting Robards's political problems affect me... This rage was the end product of all of that frustration. A near-dead friend. Hadn't had one of those since the war. There was an occupational hazard in Auror work, but this was Dover, for Merlin's sake. The man whose first year as an Auror was marred with Voldemort taking over the Ministry, and now, years later, he took some initiative and got burned for it.

At least he'd get the weekend off now, I thought darkly.

It barely took me a minute to Apparate to the junkyard and stumble over Dover's abandoned body parts. I swore and started searching the place up and down, blowing up small piles of junk with my wand. Unfortunately for the man I was looking for, he had stuck around after cursing Dover. Also unfortunate for him was the fact he tried taking a potshot at me from the pile of scrap metal he was hiding behind. And his first spell missed.

I deflected his second curse, and before I knew what I was doing, I flicked my wand and a nearby chain wrapped itself around his leg, squeezing hard. He dropped his wand as I hoisted him up in the air, flipped him upside down, and slammed him to the ground head first. I hoisted him up again, and when the chain started to slip from around his ankle, I conjured a spike and kept it in place permanently.

He screamed.

"What happened to the last man who visited here?" I asked, ignoring the man's cries of pain. He kept looking up at the spike impaled through his ankle and back at me in total shock. Given that I had survived a harpoon through the leg a month back, he would be fine. "What happened?"

"He- he-"

"He got cursed. In the back. He's expected to recover, though I gather it was a pretty fucking close call! Answer the question, and tell me the story. Now!"

"He was asking questions."

"About a knife?"

"Big knife! Yes! Showed me a picture, told me that it-" He groaned. "Oh shit it hurts."

"Keep talking!"

"He said that he got a tip that I had the knife! He asked too many questions, then he wanted to check my stash."

"Wands were pulled?"

"I had no idea what he was on about! I was just trying to Confund him a little. Get him to shut up! Please, look, I'm not- I'm not a killer or anything, I'm just-"

I hardly doubted that the man pissing himself while being hung upside down in mid-air, having a chain wrapped around his foot and a large spike holding the chain in place was the Constellation Killer. But he had still tried to kill Dover, and that was enough. He burst into tears as my wand-tip met his forehead.

_"Stupefy!" _

..::..-.-..::..

Entrances are important. They set a mood. They make a statement about the person entering the room.

My entrance into the Atrium was one for the books. Harry Potter dragging an unconscious man who smelled of blood and urine by a chain around his ankle. I took the stairs as per usual, heading into the Auror Office and depositing the broken and battered man at Robards's feet.

"What the-"

"I don't know his name, but this man is the one responsible for Dover's recent trip to St Mungo's. His current condition is a result of trying to attack me too. I defended myself. He confessed to me freely that he cursed Dover, but claims to not have any knowledge of our Constellation Killer. However, given that the confession was taken outside of a Ministry interrogation room and without the aid of potions or spells, we can't be too sure, can we? Oh, and get Ravenwood to fetch Mundungus Fletcher too. Turns out that Dover got led to this sack of shit because of Fletcher. Be a chap and interrogate them both for me, Gawain? That'd be super."

Leaving behind an unconscious prisoner, a spluttering Robards and a silent Boot, I headed back to my cubicle to recover Loki's book. Before I could take my exit via the stairwell, Robards intercepted me.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he spat.

I glared him down, rising to my full height. We were roughly the same height, but I felt taller right now. "I'm off to dinner with a friend. That's my plan for the night. Tomorrow, I'm going to write a nice concise report with small and understandable words about what happened today. I will accept any and all manner of hell you decide to unleash on me for my methods or my attitude, but I have two stipulations, Robards. You will not suspend me or fire me or whatever until after this killer has been found and put away. You will not actively interfere with my investigation because you are trying to cover your ass from Williamson!"

I had a knack for angering people sometimes. Robards's face went violet with rage, and his beady eyes looked positively murderous. "Is this a road you want to walk down, Potter? I am your superior-"

"I work for you, sure, and you may be my work superior, but these kinds of things are subject to change, _sir_." Years of Snape-baiting had honed my skills in adding a biting edge to the 'sir' at the end of my sentences. Thank you, dead man. "You were a star Auror once, Robards. You can't have lost it all yet, I know it. You may be flabby and following in Scrimgeour's footsteps in ways of pure incompetence, but we could've avoided this. Because of your idiocy and my own stupidity, I wasn't there to prevent Dover from getting cursed. He nearly died! But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about whatever Maximillian Jensen is going to say in tomorrow's article now, aren't you?"

His silence told me all I needed to know. It also proved to me that whatever hope of salvaging Robards as a proper Head Auror I was holding out for was gone.

I scoffed. "Right. Nice of you to keep your eye on the ball. You're lucky I'm feeling more forgiving today, Robards. If any friend of mine gets hurt, I do not take it lightly." I moved past him, ignoring the shocked looks of the collective office, a wave of heads popping over the top of their cubicles.

Can't be sure, of course, but I think I had embarrassed the fuck out of our boss.

"See you tomorrow, Potter," I heard Robards say with so much anger and hate that the child inside of me died all over again.

Oh yeah, I'm going to be feeling this for a while.

I arrived back at Grimmauld Place and immediately set about taking an hour-long shower. The scalding hot water didn't exactly wash away all my problems. Robards would be a colossal tower of anger in the days to come. Dover had barely dodged death and would be recovering for some time. There was a killer out there who was two more bodies away from finishing a ritual that could result in more death and chaos. My thoughts only briefly travelled to the contract and the upcoming renewal, but I suppressed them. I'd take care of Jack Larson when all of this crap blew over.

I had a bright spot though. My appointed meet-up with Tonks was only minutes away, so I stepped out of the shower and dressed myself in some clean civilian clothes. Included with the ensemble was a Weird Sisters T-shirt I had taken to wearing more and more lately for Tonks's amusement. Once dressed and after taking a few minutes to preen myself, I gave Kreacher the night off from trying to poison me and Apparated to Tonks's flat building.

I knocked as a courtesy, although Tonks had drilled into my head that I was more than welcome to storm into her flat and catch her naked or something if I wanted to. I opened the door and was immediately met with a tight hug as soon as I crossed the threshold.

"I heard what happened," she said. "Is Mac-"

"He's fine. Probably sleeping comfortably," I said reassuringly, rubbing her shoulder a little. "I'll visit him tomorrow after I get glared at by Robards all morning."

"What happened there? I mean, I heard the rumours about you dragging in a man like a Muggle cowboy, but Eric's a horrible gossip..."

I smiled. "How about I tell you while we cook dinner?"

She nodded, her hair long and lustrously pink. She chortled a bit at my shirt. "Never gets old."

While we cooked dinner, I told her most of the day's events. I struggled to keep the mood light, even as I attempted to make jokes about the Weird Sisters shirt or her hair. The serious talks were distracting too, I decided once I had scalded my finger while straining the potatoes.

"It sucks, but I kinda just want to move past it for the night," I implored, as Tonks tapped my burnt finger with her wand, healing it. For a bonus, she took care of the cut from this morning. "Thanks, Tonks."

"Hey, I can't have my best cook get himself injured before he can finish cooking," she said lightly. I snorted and got back to finishing up the vegetables, while she set the small dining table and fetched another couple of butterbeers for the two of us.

Attempting my 'happy mode' thing, I briefly hummed a jaunty little tune.

"Uh-oh," Tonks said, voice full of mock fear. "Is dinner ruined?"

"Just thinking," I said. "Strange as it might sound."

"Actually, it'd be strange if you stopped thinking for once. I miss the days when I could overload your head by filling it with sex jokes."

"That was five years ago, Tonks," I protested. "And you haven't had any new material to work with."

"Maybe, but if you're half the best friend of mine I think you are, you'd at least pass out one more time." Suddenly, she was cosying up beside me, butterbeer in her hands and a flirty smile on her face.

"Must've gotten a little... harder in my old age."

She smirked. "Dark Lord-killing genius only matched by flirting genius."

"Point." I set about taking the chicken out of the frying pan and onto our plates. Looked good. Cooked, at least. "Oh right. You said you had news?"

"My news?" Oh, she definitely knew what I meant, the coy look on her face telling all. We settled down and dug into dinner, a comfortable scene until her clumsiness shone through and a flying chunk of mashed potato hit my face.

I pulled my wand out of my pants pocket - the wrist-holster absent while I wasn't wearing sleeves - and cleaned the potato off. A moment of stupid giggling erupted from the both of us, followed by the classic game of Tonks literally pulling faces to try to get me to choke on my meal.

"I don't know..." she eventually said, drawing out her words. "I mean, it's good news, but I'd bet it'd make a fantastic surprise!"

"Tonks, do you remember what I said about tying you down and getting my answer forcefully?"

"Oh it came up once or twice during the cold and lonely night..."

"It still stands."

"It does?"

I gave her a little scowl, only to find she had shifted her face into a pretty good approximation of my scowl. I don't really check the mirrors that much or anything, but it was still a good imitation.

Dinner ended soon after, and, after a bit of mayhem involved in doing the dishes, we took our dessert in the form of ice cream and settled on Tonks's very comfortable couch. Trust me, I knew how comfortable this couch was - I'd slept on it a couple of times now. After a few moments of eating, I got back into needling her.

"So..."

"Fine, I give up." I grinned at her tone, halfway between exasperated and resigned. But she wore an easy smile on her face as she said, "I was doing a bit of thinking over the past few weeks, especially around the time when you were all grouchy and because of your workload-"

Work. Bad. Scowl-y. It was times like these I cursed Robards and his delegating methods once more. That, and I really wished the goblins would stop rebelling so we could get our office back in full form.

Evidently, Tonks had had the same epiphany. "Teaching's fun and all, but I want to help you out more than anything. I feel bad about being the one who's not being tortured by politics and fieldwork. So..."

"You asked to be reassigned?" I asked. She nodded somewhat hesitantly, her smile turning sad.

"What can I say, eh? I miss the field. We both know that I took the teaching job because of..." She steeled herself. "Because Mum and Dad both died and I didn't think that I should keep working in the field after the war. Because Remus... was gone and my self-confidence was..." Shattered. Destroyed. Run over and burnt to ashes by a werewolf who hadn't faired any better. But I didn't care about Remus at that moment. I cared about the girl with the pink hair who was pouring her heart out. "... Not exactly stellar."

"Tonks," I said softly. "I know you can do it, if you put your mind to it. You were always a fantastic Auror."

"I know that," she said, though her eyes were doubting. "I said to myself that I should at least try to go through what you do every day if we're going to stay as close as we are."

"I'll help out," I said with determination. The ice cream had been abandoned and we were especially close on the couch. It was nice and warm. "Not much has changed since the Fudge days I'm afraid, but I will be there however I can, even if Robards suspends me. No - I will march straight to Cresswell and get my job back if I have to. I'll be there."

"Good." She rested her head on my shoulder. "If I need your help."

"Even if you don't I'll pester you until you start hexing me."

There was a moment of such stillness and such complacency and such _warmth_ that I almost jerked away as if I had been burned. I'll be the first to admit that I was not exactly raised as a touchy-feely wizard, but I took comfort where I could get it while growing up outside of the Dursley home. As it had been for years now with Tonks, I was giving comfort and taking it all at once. Many long nights spent talking, reassuring each other that everything was going to be all right in the end. Her parents, her worries as an Auror, her lack of self-confidence after Remus fled. My parents, my worries over Voldemort and my yearning for a constant happiness. Issues for us both to get through, and we had gotten through them together.

The first kiss wasn't entirely unexpected, and it wasn't anything awkward. Her head was off my shoulder and her eyes were sparkling up at me - eyes that could change colour but never lose that sparkle. We leaned in and just enjoyed it. It'd been a while since I'd actually been with a girl in any intimate manner, but I'd take a warm Tonks kiss on the couch in her flat over a drunken encounter with a desperate Romilda Vane any day.

We pulled away, and we were quiet for a brief moment. No awkwardness. Just understanding. Something big was about to happen, and both parties knew it. I can't speak for her, but I knew I wanted it.

"You know, this could really ruin a good friendship," I said. Well, somebody had to say it, even though a very neglected part of me was telling me to shut my fucking mouth and start kissing her again.

"I'm well aware," Tonks said softly. "I... We can just see how this goes..."

Very tempting.

"Either way, I'll still help you out when you come back to work with us."

"I'll still beg you to cook me chicken."

"I wonder if I should cook more often..."

The second kiss was a lot more passionate, and ended with delayed laughter over my proclamation. Thoughts of Remus, Robards, The Constellation Killer, Larson and Dover fled my mind. Things of that nature could wait for the morning.

..::..-.-..::..

_February 24th, 1999: Massacre on an Irish Moor_

I Apparated, realised I was standing on a human torso sans head, so I slipped and fell to the ground in shock.

Not one of my better landings, I'll admit.

Tonks, for a change, had appeared gracefully and didn't bother to help me up. Her eyes were sharp and her hair was short and out of her face. I didn't blame her for being a little testy - Remus was my friend too, and even though we fought like all hell when he decided to run off and join Greyback's pack, I still wanted to find him alive.

That seemed unlikely, unfortunately. The entire area had been the sight of a vicious battle only hours before. Our intelligence and a little speculation told us that Greyback and his clan had settled in a forest that bordered on an easy dinner access in the form of a dozen farmhouses. The farmhouses were owned by two feuding wizarding families - the O'Flynns and the Muldoons, who, according to local legend, had been at it for centuries. They left the rest of the world well enough alone, and hadn't actively engaged in any wars outside out of their own feud for decades. But, with the threat of Greyback and his werewolves bearing down on them, they had formed a cohesive unit and set out to slaughter the beasts as they rested following a full moon.

It was a fucking massacre. The werewolves had made a sparse camp in a small foggy little clearing, and they were bordered on all sides by tall trees and thick brush. The general destruction caused by the vengeful Irish wizards had rendered the sparse camp nonexistent. The bodies remained.

I, using those deductive Auror powers I was honing daily, guessed how the battle had gone down. The fog and the trees had covered the attacking wizards, who had formed a neat little ring around the slumbering beasts who had reverted to human form. Greyback had probably been the first killed. I inspected his body, noting the multiple wounds that had taken down the monster for good. Dark glee shot through me as I noticed the Irishmen had removed his teeth and claws from his body as trophies.

Next to Greyback's body lied that of a woman's, probably the designated mate of the pack's alpha. The frightening amount of scars and blemishes on her near-naked form were probably inflicted _before_ the massacre. The look of peace on her face disgusted me. Hell, a lot of the bodies looked at peace. Such was the life of a werewolf without Wolfsbane Potion. They never stopped fighting their inner demons and they'd never get a chance for true peace. It was a depressing thought, but it was my hope that it could all be changed for the better one day.

One day soon, in fact. I had only shifted reality a month back, but most of my changes were a lot more focused on getting myself and my friends out of hot water, and making certain people forget certain things ever happened so as to avoid any further incidents like the one that had driven me to writing the contract in the first place. I hadn't magically fixed werewolf rights or anything, but Cresswell's tenure as Minister for Magic was helping that along. He had enlisted the help of a young werewolf named Rowan Talbot, who was lobbying for fair rights and trying to undo the damage done by people like Umbridge. The fair rights would practically entitle the werewolves to be accepted back into our society, provided they take the Wolfsbane the Ministry provides.

Greyback, however, wasn't so happy about the idea. His pack had been on the move since Voldemort died in late May, tearing through the UK and leaving behind the usual mass of bodies and frustrated groups of pursuing Aurors in their wake. The plan had been for Talbot to approach them one day in the future and try to rehabilitate the werewolves as a whole. But now that this massacre had occurred, Greyback's group would be held up as the worst possible result if the fair rights laws didn't pass.

Officially, Tonks and I had been sent to investigate the remains of the pack, but there was a personal stake in it for both of us. Remus Lupin. The poor man that had infiltrated Greyback's group successfully by September 1997 and had not been spotted since. A year and a half later, and we were still trying to find him.

I never said it aloud, but I was expecting to find his body. I could only hope he had found peace in death.

I wasn't perfect. I had done something drastic by shifting reality. By all means, it shouldn't have worked in the first place, and I could not simply rewrite the contract again and again every time I ran into a new problem. I had thought Remus dead at the time of writing, and hadn't even considered trying to shift him and Tonks into a happier life. The happy ending both of them deserved. Even if I couldn't bring Tonks's parents back, at least they'd be happy. I wished I was perfect and the shift had solved all of my problems, just for them at least.

Tonks stood across the clearing, staring into the only grouping of trees that didn't have blood or gore splattered on them. While there were quite a few bodies, I knew that most of the pack had been reduced to messy piles spread out in the grass, the occasional limb or organ lying around. I nearly tripped over a stray arm as I made my way over to her. I had to wonder: was that Remus's arm?

"Tonks..."

"I don't want to hear it, Harry," she said forcefully. "I'd rather just keep looking..."

"I know, but you should go back."

"Back?" she hissed. "We can't head back to the Ministry and pretend that Remus isn't-"

"I know that. I meant that you should go back and get some more Aurors. There's a good chance some of the werewolves were able to run off into the forest while the Muldoon and O'Flynn families were enjoying their bonding time."

She said nothing.

"Please, Tonks. Just Apparate back. You'll drive yourself barmy wading through all of this shit. I know I'm cracking a bit." There was a dead woman on the ground a few paces away. What little clothes she wore were covering a protruding stomach. Pregnant. Great.

Tonks disappeared with a loud crack, leaving me alone in the blood-soaked clearing. She'd be about ten minutes, I knew, so I set about doing cursory scans of the surrounding area. I could only hope some angry Irishman wouldn't start slinging spells my way, but most of them were stuck at the Ministry undergoing extensive questioning. Under Talbot's new laws, the two families might face charges for killing the more innocent of the pack, those just following Greyback because our Ministry had screwed them over years ago.

Suddenly, I heard a rustling in the trees. Time for a brawl with an Irishman then. I raised my wand.

"Who's out there?" I called. "My name is Auror Potter, and I should inform you that I am armed and am very angry being where I am right now."

The reply was a soft and pained moan. I carefully made my way forward, half-formed spells in the forefront of my mind. My left arm stung a little in the breeze, but I ignored it and cursed Draco Malfoy and my lack of foresight once more.

"Remus?" I called. My voice sounded impossibly childish as I did, but I wanted him to be alive. Despite the fact that he had run away and caused immense emotional pain to a very good friend of mine, he was still a link to the happier times before both wars. Before Secret Keepers and death and Azkaban and loneliness.

I found a tired old man propped out against the trunk of a tree, his scarred hand clutching his stomach, blood leaking through his fingers. Shock hit me, and I murmured, "Holy shit."

It _was_ Remus.

I dropped to my knees and performed a quick diagnostic charm on reflex. "What'd they hit you with?"

He didn't answer right away. Delayed, he let out a soft, "Harry?"

"Yes, I'm Harry Potter and you're Remus Lupin, and you're injured. I should get a Healer- I'm not- I'm not sure-"

"No Healers," Remus croaked. "No Aurors. No..." His eyes widened. "Harry, you won the war."

"I know I did. It's nearly been a year," I said glibly. I gently moved his hand and checked the deep cut across his stomach. It wasn't by any means a harmless wound, but he would survive. "I'm just wondering why you stayed away, mate."

"Greyback?"

"Dead. Some Muldoon probably just made himself a national hero."

"Everyone else?"

I shook my head, and Remus groaned.

"Sorry, Remus. I know they probably weren't all your friends-"

"They were supposed... to be left alive," Remus said, voice barely a whisper. "I told Muldoon to spare the women and children."

My eyebrows shot up. "You made a deal?"

His mouth twitched. "Only way. Had to. Didn't think they'd kill... everyone. And they call us monsters."

"Remus," I said softly, "what happened to you?"

He took a minute to right himself, his breathing shallow but his voice surprisingly strong. "Greyback kept us moving for months after Voldemort. When I first joined up, I was one of the most rational people there because of the years on Wolfsbane. I tried to convince them to split off with me, but I got... lost in the days that followed. The wolf. The wolf takes its toll and makes you forget rationality. It makes you angry and you don't have any control." He shuddered. "When I finally started to get a clearer picture, you'd won the war and I had killed so many people. When we stopped here a month ago, I started talking to Muldoon. Told him what kind of wards he'd need to stop Greyback's ilk from escaping. That worked out... spectacularly, obviously."

"Remus..."

He held up a bloodied hand. "Suppose I deserved it. Sirius got twelve years in Azkaban, Peter spent years as a rat, and you grew up with Lily's horrible relatives. Guess I got mine."

"You survived," I said sternly. "You survived and you conquered all of your demons, Remus. We'll get you on Wolfsbane and get these scratches healed up. The Ministry has changed. They're passing new laws and changing things. Because of you. Hell, they might name some of them after you if you die, but since we don't plan on that, I suppose not."

He chuckled, coughing a bit. "Not going to happen."

"What is?"

"You're not taking me back."

My reaction was immediate and snappish. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"Harry, I've done things. I can't go back." The broken man in front of me deflated, as if the blood from his stomach was leaking out like air from an old and tired balloon. "I need to be alone for a while. As long as it takes-"

"Don't. What about Tonks?"

Remus's eyes widened. "Tonks..." he moaned. "I can't. I ran away and I'll stay away. She'll move on. She's strong. She's a survivor. There was nothing between us, Harry. She was emotionally attached, but it wasn't love."

"You're torturing yourself for no reason!"

"All just a lie." Remus shut his eyes for a split second, and with great effort, reopened them. "Harry, I don't care if you think me a coward or a monster or a bit of both, but if you ever do one thing for me in your entire life, it's this. Please. Let me heal alone. Let them think I'm dead. Please, Harry."

I was silent as he closed his eyes again. He whispered "please" one more time and promptly fell asleep, propped up against the tree and leaving me there on my knees and covered in his blood. A decision had to be made.

Remus Lupin ran away once. I didn't when Kingsley was arresting my friends left and right. I didn't when I murdered Kingsley and the Ministry faced a tumultuous month until I stepped up and executed my plan with Loki. I had done it to give my friends a little peace.

I heard a series of cracks back at the clearing. I was far away enough and Remus was at an angle that made it impossible for us to be seen.

"Harry?" I heard Tonks call. Tonks. Gorgeous and spunky Tonks, who would have to accept Remus's death for good. A young woman who bonded with an older man who ran away.

Never underestimate the privilege of choice. Remus had chosen to run, and now he had chosen to fake his death and hide out in his remaining days. Months ago, Kingsley had made a choice, and I had killed him for it. Soon after, I had chosen to take a dangerous path and shift reality itself. Even though it hurt, and even though I would have to lie and feel like crap about it all, I would let Remus live by his own choice. I owed him that much, I guess. But when I remembered that I had taken away the privilege of so many things from so many people by warping their minds and their perceptions, maybe I could help alleviate my guilt a bit by doing this favour for a friend.

I hid Remus Lupin from the other Aurors, told Tonks that it seemed very likely that he perished in the massacre, and held her in my arms as she wept openly.

All just a choice. All just a lie.

..::..-.-..::..

_The Morning After: I'm So Screwed._

Waking up was pleasant, for a change. The window in Tonks's bedroom got more sunlight than mine back at Grimmauld (Or my study, for that matter), and she didn't have a vindictive little house elf living with her and banging pots and pans early in the morning for attention. With her pressed up half on top of me and her hair splayed across my bare chest, I could honestly say that last night was worth the potential destruction of our friendship if just for this moment. The night hadn't been perfect, of course - I was a little out of practice and Tonks was extremely clumsy, but it was damn close, and I hadn't had that in... well, never.

After a bit of morning activity, a shower was had and although we teased each other about it, we had separate showers so we could take a moment to think. Excepting the thoughts of shock, disbelief and general astonishment (But in a good way), I could only think about a big breakfast.

"You'll probably end up late, you know," Tonks said over a cup of tea while I made us a couple of omelettes.

I snorted. "Robards can wait. I'm hungry and we should probably have a talk."

"One of those dreadfully serious talks where we make lists of pros and cons?" Tonks asked.

"Yeah. Can't you tell I've got my serious face on?"

She pouted. "Okay, if we're going to be serious, I gotta say that I won't surrender to your wiles again without a nice dinner first."

"You mean another one," I pointed out. Both of us had perpetually giddy grins stuck on our faces all morning, I bet.

"Nope. Last night's chicken, while very good and followed by some fun in the sack, was cooked by a friend for another friend."

"Really? Well in the interest of making you surrender to my 'wiles', as it were, I think I'll have to cook dinner again." Multiple times, if necessary.

Talk turned lighter over breakfast and we planned out the weekend with as much ease as we usually would. However, there was this odd weighty feeling to the conversation, most likely due to the lack of definition in our current relationship. I personally had no objections if we made the transition into 'relationship relationship', and we would've talked about it all morning if the pressing need for me to go to work didn't come up. In the end, we planned to visit Dover together at around lunchtime, and maybe tonight we'd have a long talk and I'd angle for a repeat performance of last night.

I stopped by Grimmauld before heading into work, changing into my work clothes and collecting the small pile of mail Kreacher had gathered for me. There was a letter from Hermione, the Saturday edition of the _Daily Prophet_, and, of course, two more letters from Remus that I didn't even bother to read this time. I stuffed the mail in my robe pocket and set about reading Maximillian Jensen's latest puff piece about the Constellation Killer. It was intended to be an introductory article, but wizarding Britain at large no doubt had knowledge of the killer already - gossip via magic was always a lot more streamlined and to the point, and the case had been under Ministry jurisdiction for a month and a half. So of course the general populace would know already.

Dover was named specifically in the article as one of the lead Aurors, my partner and the wizard who had "ingeniously figured out a revelatory and very exciting new lead at this time of writing".

I winced. I knew how bad that whole thing had turned out, and Dover had definitely felt the pain for his initiative.

Of course, in the brief hours between Dover's injury and publication, Jensen had snuck in a little amendment at the end of his article.

_"A startling update since the initial article was writ: Auror Dover's supposed 'revelatory' lead has ended with a trip to St Mungo's Hospital For Magical Maladies and Injuries. An inside source at Mungo's has been quoted with saying that Auror Dover is 'lucky to be alive'. No current word on whom was responsible for such an attack, but witnesses saw Harry Potter himself bring in a suspect, and rumour has it that the suspect is not the famed Constellation Killer._

_"What does this mean for the Robards administration at the Auror Office? With a bungled lead and his lead Auror out of commission, how much time do the Aurors have left to find this killer? Turn to page six for comments from our editors and a few choice individuals..."_

It was times like these I wish I could hold ol' Jensen's ghostly self down with some cold iron and exorcise him. Reporters. Ugh.

I heard a screech from behind me, and a worn tawny owl swooped in through the window, dropped a single piece of parchment, and headed back out. Sighing, I tossed the _Prophet _onto the nearest table and read the note. Remus, _again. _This time, however, he actually needed something.

_"Harry, I need Wolfsbane. Now."_

My stomach sank. It was the full moon tonight, and Remus's letters _had_ been increasing in number since a few days ago. What would've happened if I had just ignored his letters all day and he wasn't able to get any Wolfsbane? I knew even a tiny slip-up like this could do horrible things to his psyche. Even if he locked himself down, the fact that the wolf would be in control again would set him back. Much as I hated the web of lies I had to spin in order to keep Remus's continued existence a secret, making the man go through a raw transformation again would be needlessly cruel.

Let it never be said that I'm not fickle or properly paranoid. When I Apparated to Remus's little cottage, the feelings of guilt were replaced with suspicion.

It was a plain little cottage that was apparently enough for Remus - though after years of living in the woods with Greyback, I'd be fine with a shack too - and beside it stood a small stone chamber where Remus locked himself up every month. I had enchanted the small chamber myself, the chains neigh unbreakable even with werewolf strength. I arrived at the cottage's perimeter to find Remus puttering around outside, pacing back and forth. Slightly off to the side of the cottage I saw a patch of blackened grass. Combined with the look on his face, I knew I had been led on.

"I've got your potion," I said stiffly, putting the bottle I brought with me on the grass. I crossed my arms and glared at him. "You know, just lying via letter would've sufficed, Remus. You didn't have to pour out your only stash of Wolfsbane on the grass over there to make a point."

"It was an accident," Remus fibbed.

"Okay, you've got my attention and I haven't been at work yet. What's so important?"

"Look, Harry-"

"Remus. Make it short and sweet."

He crossed his own arms. "The last two times we spoke, you've seemed a little edgy. You also mentioned you were having problems with Tonks-"

"Yes, and I distinctly remember sending you a letter a week ago, telling you that we were doing better." _Beyond_ better as of last night, but Remus didn't need to know that.

Remus narrowed his eyes at me. "You're lying to me. Not about Tonks. No, you're lying to me about _you_."

I let out an exasperated breath and ran my hand through my hair. "Is this a full moon thing, Remus? I know you get all nervous and possessive around a full moon, but this is fucking ridic-"

"Harry Potter, you will shut up and you will listen to me." Huh. Didn't know he had it in him. "I started to catch up on our world's news, you know. You were very good at giving me a nice picture of your work and the politics and the current status of the Quidditch league. You know what was conspicuous in its absence, Harry? No mention of Death Eaters showing up dead or disappearing every few months. Imagine my surprise when I find out just in the last year three prominent Death Eaters who escaped justice have died or are presumed to be in another country, yet nobody has seen them."

I said nothing, so he continued, "Harry, you've seemed a little stressed lately. I wonder if I was to ask you how many Death Eaters and other assorted bad guys have died or gone missing since the war ended, you would give me an exact number."

I will not blow up in his face, I will not blow up, I will not blow up.

"If you're anything like I'd imagine, you're the one who has something to do with these incidents. I know we all have our secrets, and I know the war was tough, but you need to move on."

I laughed coldly. "Move on? Which one of us is the one living in the middle of fucking nowhere as a hermit? Which one of us was the one who wallowed in self pity for twelve fucking years after Voldemort died the first time?"

"This isn't about me-"

Something inside of me snapped and my blood started to boil. It's not like he was wrong in his suspicions, but the fact that he continually threw Tonks into my face and tried to make everything about her, even after he had long ago given her up, really rankled me.

"Yes it is! It's always about Remus bloody Lupin and his pathetic bleeding heart story. Remus Lupin, who ran away and stayed away and pissed all over a young woman who could've honestly loved him for what he was!"

"I made my choice," he thundered. "But this is about you! Harry, if you're responsible for the missing Death Eaters-"

"And what would make you reach that fucking conclusion?" Well, admittedly, me sounding defensive wasn't exactly lacking in suspicion.

"You're all Tonks has, by your own admission. I could understand you lying to her to protect me, but going behind her back-"

My wand found its way into my wand somehow. "You say it's not about Tonks, and oh, plot twist, it fucking is! If the next words out of your mouth tell me to stay away or abandon her because you're paranoid and possessive, I cannot be held responsible for my actions."

"No relationship, platonic or what-have-you, should be based on a lie. That's why I would never have stayed with Tonks, and that's why you have to stay away too."

"So I can become a card carrying member of the Remus Lupin Club For Brooding Souls?"

"Tonks does not deserve-"

"Tonks is more than my friend," I hissed. Much more, dammit! "I may be lying to her by covering your ass, but it's still the best damn relationship either of us could ask for at this time. There'll be no giving that up because you're jealous, you're full of spite and you think I'm killing Death Eaters in my spare time!"

Something in my tone made him pause and sniff the air. Despite having showered most of the smell of sex off of me hours earlier, there was no mistaking the smell of the early morning snog I'd indulged in with Tonks after breakfast, especially to a werewolf.

"You had sex with Tonks," Remus said quietly. "You and her..."

I affixed a sneer to my face. I couldn't help it. "All night long, Remus, and it was _good_, and I didn't run off in the morning like you would've had you had the chance. More pure than anything, more than the feeling of being inside of her, I felt potential for something wonderful. Tonight, we plan to have a long chat about our issues, and I very much expect to hear her admit to being over you. Do the same, Remus. Get over her and move on." I really couldn't stop pettiness leaking into my tone. All of my frustrations with this man who I had once called an honorary uncle were pouring out, and I didn't want it to stop.

I also didn't want to wonder what I would have to do to him in order to stop him from investigating into the Death Eaters I'd killed.

Eventually, he just said, "You should go. Just go..."

"Fine," I said mildly. I reached into my pockets and pulled out the unopened letters he'd sent just this morning. "Thought you might want these back." I dropped them to the ground, my hand catching another envelope I hadn't noticed earlier. "Whoops, seems this one is from someone else."

I expected a reply, but I did not receive one. The tension was palpable and I checked to see if the Wolfsbane I had brought him was still in one piece. "Take your Wolfsbane and lock yourself up tonight, Remus. I'll owl you your next batch and some more gold at a later date."

I cleared my mind and centered my thoughts solely on the Ministry Atrium. Before I felt the familiar sensation of the start of Apparation, I heard a saddened growl come from the man I had left behind. I put him out of mind once I arrived at the Atrium. I had happier thoughts of Tonks to look forward to later, and I knew that would get me through the morning of hell Robards would rain down on me. It would get me through the guilt I'd feel while visiting Dover this afternoon. Absently, I fished the mysterious letter out of my pocket and opened it as I scaled the stairwell to the Auror Office.

I did not expect this, to say the least.

_"Auror Harry Potter,_

_If you have guessed that the ritual I am undertaking involves a rebirth, of that you are correct. The ultimate goal of the rebirth might have you wondering, so allow me to clarify. I plan to allow for a rebirth, a reset, even, back to how things once were. Back to how things should be. Cryptic, I know, but I'm sure you are of a unique sort who could shift their mind and understand my meaning. _

_Thank you for your time,_

_The Constellation Killer."_

The Constellation Killer's rebirthing ritual was going to unmake my contract.

Oh, _fuck._

..::..-.-..::..

To Be Continued in Chapter Four: Eleven

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Thanks again for reading. Chapter Four will be up in a week or so, and will no doubt be shorter than this monster of a thing. Plus, it'll have some action!


	4. Chapter Four: Eleven

Thanks to all who reviewed/added me to alerts/favourites/communities. This is the second-last chapter, and I think it's a pretty fun one. So enjoy!

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Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. This fanfiction is a non-profit thing written for enjoyment of myself and my readers.

Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs.

Written by Matt Silver

..::..-.-..::..

Previously on Breach of Contract: Post-HBP AU. Harry Potter won the war. He did not do so cleanly, and desperate actions were taken in those desperate times. Those at the Ministry and on the Wizengamot sought to prosecute the Order and their allies for some of their actions, Minister Shacklebolt himself betraying his former friends for personal reasons. For that betrayal, Harry killed him. Such an action was not a magical fix-all for his problems, but shifting reality sure was.

He bound the rewritten reality to a contract, one that must be renewed periodically, sometimes every few months and sometimes as short a time as five weeks. The shift was not perfect, though. Harry did not save his friend Remus from his fate, but instead made a choice to shield Remus and let the man live out the rest of his days his own way - stewing in his own guilt and taking Harry down with him whenever he could.

For a month and a half, the Auror Office has been dealing with a new case. The Constellation Killer ritualistically murders Muggles, brands them with a zodiac sign, and leaves their bodies out in abandoned areas via Portkey. The politics of the office under Gawain Robards interfere with progress, and Harry's partner Dover was injured as a result. At the face of nearly losing one of their friends, Harry and Tonks's relationship takes a turn for the better, while Harry and Remus barely avoided killing each other in their last meeting.

But then, Harry got a note from the Constellation Killer. The killer plans to rebirth things back to how they once were. He plans to unmake Harry's contract. Unmake the reality shift. Make everybody remember things that Harry made them forget.

..::..-.-..::..

Chapter Four: Eleven

..::..-.-..::..

_Midnight_

Had there been a breach of contract?

I could be sure that there had been a breach of the secrecy surrounding the contract. I could be sure that the Constellation Killer's ultimate goal was to kill two more Muggles, collect their blood on the Marius ritual knife, brand them using a wand especially made for the occasion, and then they would go through with a rebirthing ritual. One that would reset reality back to how it once was. Back to how it was before I shifted reality and bound myself to a contract. I had originally thought the killer was planning to gain untold power through the ritual. Unmaking my contract and resetting things never crossed my mind.

But damn it all if it's possible, and I may wake up tomorrow and realise everybody remembers things. Things I made them forget. They would remember events; they would remember horrors of the war I had thought best to remove. And when they got their old memories back, they would understand that someone had violated their minds. Their perceptions would be twofold - how things were until I shifted reality, and how things were because I wrote it on a piece of parchment.

I cannot allow that. This would be a close call, but that's all. It would never be my intention to think of a back-up plan. The reality shift _was_ my back-up plan. I can't have that undone. I won't have that undone.

The contract was simple enough. The words and the intent create the new reality over the old, and the reality would consistently stay as it is as long as I renew the contract before the periodic and often random deadlines. There was never any thinking about what would happen if I couldn't renew it in time. I simply would renew the contract every time, no exceptions. Failure would result in reality shattering, of memories and perceptions being forcibly shoved back into the minds I had toyed with. Failure to renew and failure to stop the Constellation Killer's ritual would end the same way. Badly.

But how had I slipped up? That bugged me.

I tended to avoid magical creatures or objects of perception as a rule, but it was very possible that someone, namely our killer, had sensed the contract in my blood. Maybe somebody caught an inconsistency, some minute detail I missed and haven't yet thought of.

It said something that the killer hadn't just tried to kill me instead of going through with the ritual. I'm good at surviving things - two Killing Curses, even - but I wasn't invincible. Did he want me to suffer for my crimes? Did he want to extort me? Was he simply getting off on me pacing back and forth, trying to prevent the ritual? Was he the good guy, wanting to put things right after I had raped the minds of an entire population, despite my good intentions? As far as morally shaky grounds go, we're about even. He may kill innocent Muggles and I kill the bad guys, but I had started this mess and I had magically violated people.

Needless to say, receiving the Constellation Killer's warning put me on edge for the rest of the day.

At work, I wrote my report like a good little Auror and even trimmed the colourful slights against Robards's character for good measure. Robards had only talked to me through Boot all day, and I was officially on a sort-of half-probation. I was to stick around until the Constellation Killer case had been closed, unless I took another toe out of line or publicly embarrassed Robards again. Once the killer had been caught, I was to undergo an exhaustive review with the possibility of either being retrained for a couple of months, being suspended, or just outright fired. The latter was the unlikeliest option - if I was still celebrity enough to be gossiped about in the papers, I was still celebrity enough to pull some weight and keep my job with little fuss.

Tonks and I visited Dover in the afternoon. It was a morbid visit all around, but I assured Dover I had the Constellation Killer case handled and the man who had attacked him, Brandon Fawcett, was now sitting in a Ministry holding cell until a proper trial could be rigged up in a few weeks. Though Mr Fawcett was not the killer and my newest pen pal, and trust me, I checked thoroughly, it was still a win for Dover. He would be getting two weeks off to recuperate and undergo a potions regimen in order to reverse the damage done by Fawcett's curse. I promised to pick him up some of his favourite food from the pub he frequented the most, and that got him to crack his first smile of the day.

"Be careful, Harry," he had said as Tonks and I were leaving. "Don't overwork yourself and don't forget you have people who can and will stop you from being a prick. Seriously, I pulled the 'sick and anguished' act on MacDonald and got her to agree to keep an eye on you."

"Your concern is touching," I said snidely, ignoring Tonks's guffaws at my side.

"Don't worry, Mac, I'll keep an eye on him," the purple-haired Metamorph promised, leering at me suggestively. "All night if I have to."

Clearly, I had unleashed a horrible monster.

I lost myself in Tonks's flat for a few hours. Over dinner we had a nice chat about our fledging relationship, and despite our history of relationships being somewhat terrible, we're going through with it.

"It's good not to be afraid, you know?" she said sincerely. "I know that we'd stay close even if it doesn't work out, and if all works out in the end, we're the better for it. It'll be worth it. I know it."

I just tried not to look guilty or think about what would happen if I failed to stop the Constellation Killer. I tried not to think about the fact she was placing her trust, whole and true, in me, and my actions could destroy that bond. I echoed her sentiments with an easy smile and a stumbling speech about having a great friend in her with the potential for more. We tested the comfort levels of her couch the best way we knew how, and I forgot about everything and enjoyed the warmth and everything about this woman who had a lot to lose if I fucked up.

It was around midnight when the negative thoughts came rushing back to my head, and I realised sleep was impossible. Even though Tonks was a quiet sleeper and I was exhausted by the day's events, my mind kept me awake.

I considered sneaking off and doing something more productive. I knew it would send a bad message though, if Tonks woke up in the morning and found I wasn't there. So distracting myself was the name of the game tonight. I thought about Christmas. It was the 16th now, so Christmas was only nine days away. I usually spent it with the Weasley's, and I doubted this year would be different. I could catch up with Ron's Quidditch training and Hermione's schooling, and maybe Tonks and I could announce our new relationship. I wondered how they would react. Positively, probably, though I'd expect a joke or two about our age difference and some remarks about having sex with Metamorphs.

I smiled. I'd expect nothing less, and if-

The quietness of the night was interrupted by a howl. I shivered unconsciously. I loved a good reminder of wolves or dogs. Favourite animals, both of them. Yep, no trauma there at all-

Another noise. What sounded like a window breaking. Then another. Odd scraping noises. London nightlife, I'd wager. Hoodlums, my uncle would've declared them, his word once the only truth in the world.

A third bloody noise, and I was missing the quiet a bit. I heard a very close window breaking. I strained my ears to hear for a Muggle complaining into the night, but instead heard loud footsteps on the stairwell in this very building. One of Tonks's neighbours stumbling drunkenly- no. The steps were fast and purposeful, bounding leaps that echoed throughout the building. Tonks's flat was on the fourth and top floor, close enough to the stairs to hear the commotion.

I heard another howl, this one disturbingly loud and disturbingly _close_. It was the howl of a beast on the prowl. I heard something through the thin walls of Tonks's flat, something walking out in the hall. A _very_ close beast on the prowl.

I didn't think it a coincidence. I shot out of bed and put on my glasses, searching the moonlit bedroom for my wand. The cold air stung my bare chest and my limbs screamed in protest of being out of bed and away from Tonks, but I continued to look. A cursory inspection of the ground, the chest of drawers in the corner and the two bedside tables on either side of the bed yielded no results.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed. My wand had been in its holster, and I remembered removing it while Tonks and I read through some of her trainee's essays. I had made a joke about wanting to avoid lighting them on fire accidentally. Things got hot and heavy a while later, and I distinctly remember Tonks's shirt going flying, the shirt knocking the holster off the coffee table, and my foot pushing the holster under the couch. "Fuck!"

_CRASH! _That was the distinct noise of a door being attacked.

_CRASH! _Second time, and I realised it was the door to this flat. Wandless, I opened the door to the bedroom and wandered out.

Tonks's flat was modest and simple. From the only entrance, you would walk into the middle of the flat's main body. To your immediate left would be two couches, one propped up against the wall across from you and one with its back to the kitchen on the right of the flat. Both couches sat in their L-shape around a glass coffee table, and a fireplace sat against the far left wall, pictures of Tonks and her family propped up on the mantle. To the right of the entrance was the small dining table sitting against the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen alcove from the rest of the flat. The small hallway to the bedroom and bathroom sat to the kitchen's left.

From the door to the bedroom, I had a full view of the kitchen. The wall to my right blocked my view of the entrance and the living room area. The couch was close to the door, but if I dove I could-

The thought was cut off by a howl, a growl and a crashing noise all rolled up into one. I peeked around the corner of the wall and got an eyeful of the beast. It was gangly and grey, standing in a half-crouch on its hind legs, its forelegs pawing over the splinters of the flat's door and creating a path for itself. Amber eyes and a pronounced snout were alert as it crossed the threshold, searching all around for its prey. It was a werewolf, and a big one at that. Holy shit, I'd need to conjure a silver sword as tall as I was to take down that thing.

I glanced at the kitchen again. If I dove and tucked myself into a little roll, I could retrieve the large knife sitting in the sink, used earlier to prepare dinner, or the frying pan sitting on the stove. Both suitable weapons against a common robber, but a fucking werewolf? A stopgap at best before I got eviscerated. Hell, I was pretty sure that thing could beat me to the nearest weapon if it wanted to. And let me say, it looked like it really wanted to.

All was quiet for a long second, and I struggled to keep my heart steady and my breathing calm. The werewolf was sniffing the air, now fully in Tonks's flat and very close to the couch and my wand. I heard what sounded like a squabbling couple through the walls - Muggles no doubt wanting to investigate the noise. The werewolf held its head high and listened to the squabbling too, completely still yet totally alert. Now was my chance.

The chance was promptly ruined by the sound of a feminine voice. "Harry?"

The ears, the nose, the horrifyingly feral eyes all shot my way, catching my face half-showing from behind the wall. Thanks, Tonks, now I was well and truly fucked for the third time tonight. The werewolf's mouth opened, showing me a collection of crimson-coloured teeth. Blood and saliva dripped out of its gaping maw and onto the ground. Snarling, the werewolf took a measured step backwards and crouched, ready to pounce.

I grit my teeth and shouted, "Tonks! I hope you have your wand on you-"

The wolf dove, and so did I. It smacked into the wall I had been hiding behind none-too-lightly, whimpering. I landed and tucked into a roll with a flourish, my hand grasping for the large knife in the sink. The wolf recovered just as I had retrieved the knife and brought it to bear, diving again and narrowly avoiding me and the end of the breakfast bar. I stepped back, my back hitting the fridge, better known as the corner of the kitchen area. I took a look at the breakfast bar, ready to dive over it. The werewolf growled at me. Well, I could sure use a little help from a purple-haired witch right about now!

Thankfully, I got my wish. A hole appeared in the wolf's shoulder, a bloody tuft of fur exploding out like a high-pressure cannon and splashing all over the kitchen and myself. The beast shrugged it off and kept coming my way, so I crouched and swung out with my right hand. I buried the knife into the wolf's front leg, my last minute crouch helping me avoid its gnashing teeth as I did. It whimpered again, and I took the split second chance to push past it and out of the kitchen. I beckoned Tonks, her wand in her hand and only clad in her underwear, to follow me into the living room area. The werewolf recovered and ambled out of the kitchen, carefully surveying Tonks and her raised wand.

"Think you can hold it off while I get my wand?" I asked, my back to the couch. I was already on my way to crouching down and getting my wand.

"No," Tonks said, her wand erupting in a stream of colour. I didn't look, but guessed that the thing that sounded like a small explosion was her spell hitting the walls and not the wolf.

I was able to get my holster, standing up in time to hear Tonks scream and be tackled by a mass of fur. I fell backwards over the couch and slammed into the glass coffee table, destroying it with pure force. Glass immediately embedded into my unprotected back and neck. Hissing in pain, I raised both of my hands and held the snapping jaw in front of my face off by pushing against the werewolf's chest with as much strength as I could muster. My wand holster, wand still intact and strapped in, was to my right, and within reaching distance. I would have to hold the thing off one-handed in order to get my wand, but the hand in question was the one that had the occasional spasm under pressure, thanks to a curse earned years ago. Yet another reason to go piss on Draco Malfoy's grave next time I had the spare time.

"Tonks!" I screamed, grunting as sharp claws raked down my shoulder. The wolf pushed its weight down on me more, and I felt the broken glass dig in even deeper somewhere in my back.

What was only a second later but what felt like hours, a fiery arrow pierced the werewolf's side, and I smelt burnt fur up close for the first time. I risked a glance at Tonks, and noticed her surrounded by floating projectiles, lighting a second arrow on fire and banishing it towards the wolf's flank. However, before the second arrow could go flying, my beastly opponent had an idea. It lashed out with one of its back legs, its supernatural strength throwing the couch behind it towards the attacking witch. I watched helplessly as the couch smacked into Tonks's legs and she went flying backwards, slamming into the wall. She didn't get up, and my wolf friend's attention came back to me. More importantly, it focused on the wand I now held in its face.

I couldn't resist a grin as my spell issued forth in a burst of red light, but the grin was gone by the time the wolf snapped its head back - literally, I could hear a bone in its neck break in order to stretch its head back as such - and only caught part of the spell. A chunk of its snout exploded off its face and headed to the roof with the remains of the spell. Plaster rained down on us, and I cast a strong Banishing Charm at the wolf's chest to push it off of me. It went flying over the breakfast bar and smashed into the kitchen area, slamming hard into the sink and enduring as a few stray dishes rained on its head. The fire arrow from earlier had been extinguished, but the projectile itself stayed stuck in its side above the knife in its leg and below the snapped neck bone and roasted snout.

I stood, realising that I had fared little better after round one. Warm blood pooled around my shoulder gash, and I was very thankful that standing up prevented the glass shards from digging into my back any further. My entire body had been winded by the sheer mass of the beast, and I think I may've cracked a rib or three. Tonks was stirring slightly, and even in the dark I could see the bloodstain on the wall from where her head had smacked into it moments earlier.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" I heard, looking up to see a tall Muggle bloke standing in the doorway. I suppose that with the general destruction, the fact Tonks and I were half-naked, and the injured werewolf in the kitchen, this could be mistaken for a weirdo bestiality sex ritual. The Muggle man just took it all in, his eyes maybe lingering on Tonks's state of undress a little too long.

_"Stupefy!" _I shouted, the red light catching him and knocking him to the ground with little grace. Obliviators. We'd need Obliviators. Lots of them. And a nice mount for me to put a werewolf head on...

A flash of grey streaked in front of my eyes, vaulting over the unconscious Muggle and out the destroyed threshold. I cursed and headed over to Tonks first, giving her head wound a cursory examination. She was all right, and I was relatively certain she could handle any Muggles that came by while I dealt with the werewolf. I followed the beast out into the hall. There were only two ways out of the building from the fourth floor hallway - either take the stairs at the end of the hall, or jump out the large window beside the stairs. The werewolf was bounding towards the window.

"Oh no you don't!" I shouted, quickly transfiguring the glass into something a bit more solid. The wolf struck the window shoulder first, a loud squelching noise sounding out and its entire shoulder bone snapping out of its fur. It ignored the window and righted itself, turning to face me. We were both within killing range. My right arm was shaking from weariness and the cold, so I couldn't be sure of my aim being very good. I would've acted first, but I looked at the werewolf. Really looked at it. Tonks's flat had been dark and the only light coming from the curtained windows, but with the window out in the hall suddenly reverting back to its pre-transfigured state, light poured into the hallway. I could see the wolf fully illuminated by the pale light of the full moon and from the streetlights below.

I had seen this werewolf before. Hell, I'd only seen one transformed werewolf in person before. It was just one fucking thing after another with me, I swear.

"Remus!" I called. The werewolf's eyes flashed over its burnt snout, recognising the name it went by while in human form: Remus Lupin. I knew he hadn't been taking his Wolfsbane lately. The fierce power and feral life behind those amber eyes led me to believe I was dealing with a man who had let the beast take over.

But then I remembered the Constellation Killer's note. Or... somebody had let the beast take over to prove something to _me_.

I had no secrets anymore, it seemed.

Remus's jaws snapped, and I reflexively shot off a spell. I missed, and Remus used the opportunity to turn and crash through the window. I don't know how or even why, but I was running full pelt and tackling him as he smashed through the glass. We burst out the side of the building, and in a flurry of motion, I was pinning him down with my left hand and taking aim with my wand in my right. Suddenly, the rushing air promptly disappeared and shockwaves reverberated through my body as the pavement met Remus's back, my own body mostly protected but no less pained by the fall. I rolled off of him, groaning piteously.

I had survived worse, but I was dealing with a magical creature with years of experience and a high tolerance for pain. He recovered faster than me.

Remus was on top of me again, a new wave of glass from the hall window pushing into my back alongside the remains of Tonks's glass coffee table. I held him off with my left forearm, pushing and pushing even though I was about done with holding back a snapping werewolf's jaw, my right hand still wrapped around my wand. A knee-jerk reaction hit me, and I plunged the wand into the wolf's side. From within, I non-verbally unleashed a multitude of spells, pulverising his insides and maybe killing him after the first few. But I kept firing until a powerful Blasting Curse tore Remus Lupin's werewolf form in two, blood and guts and all manner of disgusting bloody mash and gore caused by my spellwork spilling all over my midsection.

I pushed the top half of the dead werewolf off of me, looking away as I met his dead amber eyes, staring at me in shock. Betrayal. I may've eviscerated the werewolf and saved my own ass, but I had still killed the man beneath it all. I stood up, absently cleaned away the guts from my skin with a wave of my wand, took a few steps away from the body, and vomited all over the wet alleyway we'd landed in. I was cold, wet, injured, covered in blood and vomit, half-naked and very, _very_, angry right now.

"Harry!" My eyes darted upward and noticed Tonks half-hanging from the window I had exited from, giving me an eyeful of her scantily-covered chest. "Is it dead?"

"Very!" I shouted back, grimacing at the blood nearly covering my wand entirely. "Are you okay, Tonks?"

"I'm fine! I didn't fall out a bloody window, for one thing! Do you need me to come down there?"

I shook my head. "Tonks, put some clothes and go get Ravenwood and MacDonald for me, okay? Just them. Try and stop the Muggles from calling the police before we can clean up and Obliviate them. I'll clean up out here before I help up there."

She nodded. "Don't go dying on me or anything, okay? I'll be right back!"

I laughed bitterly, eyes avoiding the dead body. Tonks didn't know. Tonks had never seen Remus in his wolf-form. She wouldn't...

I noticed the first floor window had been broken. Someone had let Remus Lupin loose in London tonight, and his sharpened sense of smell would've leave him to Tonks's flat building. To me. He had entered through the first floor window, bounded up the stairs, and the rest of the night ended here in this alleyway, a shower of blood and guts and my last link to my parents dying horribly by my own hand. Three out of three - Sirius died because of my own stupidity, Peter I had killed myself, and now Remus because the Constellation Killer either wanted me dead or wanted to prove a point. I had no doubt. His note was either a courtesy or a warning, and sending Remus was his follow-up.

I couldn't save Remus and I almost got Tonks killed. If I couldn't prevent that, could I even hope to prevent the killer's rebirthing ritual?

I was seconds away from being sick again when I felt something warm puddle around my feet. Blood. It covered my wand too. Blood of the man I had just killed, even though he was a wolf at the time. Still a man. Still a sacrifice. Still the blood of the man I had killed with wand on my wand, and I could easily just write the words in the air and renew the contract nice and early, before the blue and before the feeling of unease but after the blood lust had started. Blood blood blood. Remus Lupin. Blood. Dead Remus, dead blood. Blood to keep the contract alive. Blood to stop distracting me from catching the Constellation Killer. He tried to kill me, and now he's helping me out. Remus and the killer, both.

_Harry James Potter._

It hung in the air for only seconds, burned for moments, and my mind felt the brunt of another renewal for only minutes.

The blood on my wand disappeared. Contract renewed.

..::..-.-..::..

"Okay... Just to clarify, there was a werewolf attack?"

"Yes."

"And you killed it."

I nodded, wincing as pain struck my side. Tonks and Ravenwood were the closest things to Healers I had on hand, and while they had done a good job removing the glass out of my back and fixing my cracked ribs, a soreness that only came from falling out a window lingered. I knew I would be feeling this little incident for days.

"So why did it attack you?" Rachel MacDonald asked curiously. By my request, she and Audrey were the only Aurors Tonks had retrieved, and after a few hours of cleaning up (Burning the body, a building-wide Obliviation spree and some mundane repairs of the damage done to Tonks's flat), the questions begun.

"I'm Harry Potter. It happens. Besides, I doubt it was here for me specifically." Lie. "Even if he was, we can't identify him, so all we have on our hands is an incident."

"An incident?" Tonks asked, frowning.

"Random werewolf attack on a building full of Muggles. A prominent Auror was involved - me. The werewolf was wild and was obviously not under the influence Wolfsbane, so we're dealing with a rogue or someone who got passed over despite Rowan Talbot's work. It'd be messy if all the progress towards werewolf rights and all this hard work got reversed because of this incident."

Tonks's frown increased. "Those decrying fair werewolf rights would use this as an example, saying that, despite these new rights and the offer of Wolfsbane, the wild beasts still repay our kindness and our gold with hostility and attempted murder on Harry Potter."

"Exactly," I said. I couldn't believe I of all people was politicking, but werewolf rights were important. I had shifted reality so that the old laws could be changed for the better, a positive outcome for a society of people not deserving of their status as outcasts. Happy endings all around.

"And Robards will get mighty angry if he hears the incident was at Tonks's place, won't he?" Rachel said.

Tonks scoffed. "Oh right, like half the world wasn't already convinced we were shagging like bunnies before last night."

Rachel's eyes lit up in a fashion reminiscent of Lavender Brown's school days. "Oooh, really?"

"Focus," Audrey snapped. "Harry has a good point, though I'm not convinced that lying and covering up the incident is for the best."

"Why not?" I challenged. "Nobody died-" Well, I think nobody died. Remus's teeth had been covered in blood... "-and the fallout would be unbelievable. We've taken care of it all. I don't like it either, but it's the right thing to do."

"I know that, Harry, but-"

"Audrey, please. Look, I asked Tonks to get you because I trust you and I knew you would do the right thing. Tonks, are you okay with this?"

Tonks nodded. Her relationship with Remus notwithstanding, she remembered the massacre of Greyback's group because they were wild and had provoked the wrong group of Irishmen.

Audrey gave it a moment's thought, looking over me and Tonks, both of us run ragged by the attack. Audrey was generally a fair woman, and I hoped she would let us sweep this incident under the rug.

"Okay," she said eventually. "Rachel and I were called away for a possible werewolf sighting near this area. We searched, but found no sign of anything. We passed right by the flat building where Auror Tonks lives, and we never saw her nor Harry Potter, both near naked and having just survived a werewolf attack. But you owe me one."

"I owe you two," I said sincerely. "Are you coming to the Weasley Christmas dinner with Perce? I'll help fend off Mrs Weasley for you." Tonks snorted beside me, and I gave her a look that very much spelt out that she was coming too. She just rolled her eyes in response.

"What do I get?" Rachel asked.

"I'll make Dover take you out one night and set up a magical restraining order just in case it doesn't go well."

The two Aurors showed themselves out soon after, and Tonks and I gravitated back to the bedroom and slipped under the covers. While I was ready to go out and go catch me a Constellation Killer, I knew that Tonks wouldn't quite roll over so easily and let me leave. So I stayed there, drawing and doling out comfort best I could for the rest of the night.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Suppose this kinda thing is to be expected while dating you?"

"Probably. But I think we'll be safe for the rest of the night."

"Really?"

"I locked the door this time."

She laughed, snuggling up to me and shutting her eyes. I watched as her hair shifted to its default mousy brown in her sleep, and despite my waking mind assaulting me with ideas and theories about the Constellation Killer, I was able to follow her into slumber easily enough.

Tomorrow, I had a killer to catch.

..::..-.-..::..

_Three Days Later: The Eleventh_

Today, I had a pile of paperwork to sign, collate and have it all ready for review by Robards by three in the afternoon, no sooner and no later. There was staying within the boundaries and not getting myself booted from the investigation, and then there was this pure torture that made me want to individually pluck each of Robards's beard hairs with superheated tweezers.

I'd hit a frustrating dry patch in my work hours. With Dover hospitalised, I was the only active Auror with the most knowledge about the case. Audrey and Rachel had been assigned to help me out, and the majority of the past few days had been spent catching them up and realising that, despite their new perspectives on the case, I had little to go on right now. I raided over five different seedy bookstores and come up empty on anything useful related to zodiac rituals. I had bribed two Unspeakables into checking their monitoring equipment and seeing if there had been any bursts of magic around lately. I had interrogated Mundungus Fletcher and Brandon Fawcett about the Marius knife, and yielded nothing new. I had been pestering Loki every hour with letters, his replies repetitive in tersely telling me to wait.

Hell, the Constellation Killer hadn't even sent me a new note or even tried to kill me again. I was at least expecting a note containing a whirlwind of horrible puns related to putting down a rabid wolf or something, but no such note came.

So, it was the nineteenth and I was stuck. Tonks was busy preparing her trainees for mid-year exams, and I didn't even think about Remus for more than a-

"Harry!" Rachel MacDonald came barrelling around the corner and approached my desk, waving a pink memo in her hands. "They've found the eleventh!"

I let out a soft curse and abandoned my paperwork, donning my cloak in record time. "Where, and please tell me that I haven't been barred from coming along?"

"Chelsea, old abandoned school, and you're coming with Audrey and me," Rachel replied, handing me the memo.

I scanned it, frowning. "This is where the ninth body was found a few weeks back. Exact same spot."

Rachel shrugged. "It's only been a week since the tenth body. Maybe he couldn't find somewhere new to dump them. He could be getting twitchy about us finding him..."

"Or he didn't care, or he's getting sloppy..." Or arrogant, or daring, or any number of things I couldn't think of. Things I couldn't predict. His note had thrown me through a loop, and any assumption I made about this killer had to be definite. No more guessing games.

I took the stairs as per usual, meeting up with Audrey and Rachel by the Apparation point in the Atrium. The three of us Apparated to the same spot Dover and I appeared at only weeks ago. We got past the Muggles and followed the trail of Enforcers and Aurors, all converging on one spot - the very same room where the ninth victim, Mr Lawrence, had been found. It was here that I had spotted the first zodiac mark. Boot was there, standing near the dead Muggle, this time a svelte woman with curly blonde hair.

"Her name is Lorena Farrow," Boot informed, nodding curtly to Audrey and Rachel but ignoring me. "No known relations to anybody of status in the Ministry. The work of the Constellation Killer, obviously. She has been marked with an Aquarius."

"Pisces left," I noted, crouching down at the body to double check for the mark. I found it, but something felt different about Miss Farrow's body. "How long has she been dead?"

"Weren't all the victims usually found within twelve hours of their murder?" Rachel asked curiously.

Boot and I shook our heads. "This body's older. Maybe a day or two," I said.

Audrey jotted something down on her notes. "Is he changing his modus operandi?"

"Maybe he knows that we're close to finding him," Rachel said cheerily.

I snorted bitterly. "Oh yeah, 'cause that's working out so well for us." Standing, I took a step away from the body and started to pace. "This woman's been dead longer than the others, and she's in the exact same spot as Mr Lawrence was."

"Her Portkey's inert, just like the ones the killer used before," Boot said. "There'll be no tracking them, just like the other ones."

"But she isn't like the others," I said roughly. "She's been dead longer, and she's been dead for longer somewhere else. I'd bet anything that she was only Portkey'd here hours ago."

Audrey caught on first. "There's less blood here."

"But why?" Rachel asked.

"Perhaps-"

Boot was cut off, however, by a soft whirring noise. Startled, I looked around the small room for the source of the noise. The whirring intensified, and I looked at the dead woman. A blue light had suddenly began to envelop her.

"The body's-"

There was a bright flash and I found myself blasted back by a great concussive force. My back hit the wall, and the phantom pain of glass digging into my back started. My ears were ringing and my entire head felt like it was vibrating. I could only see white at first, but basic shapes eventually returned, though I doubted there were suddenly a hundred more fuzzy people in the room. I heard a voice to my immediate right, followed by a reply, both voices indistinct and near impossible to understand beyond the ringing. It was not unlike hearing people talk while underwater.

"Flash spell!" I shouted, catching the attention of the other three Aurors in the room. "We'll be fine, just try not to move too much!"

"What?" Rachel called. "I can't hear you!"

Audrey looked at me. "I can! Did the body explode?"

"No!" The body was indeed missing, though I knew that the flash spell was less of the body-exploding variety, and trust me, I knew quite a few body-exploding spells. "Portkey! Saw it go before the flash!"

"Hey guys, I think there was another Portkey!" Rachel announced. We rolled her eyes at her, and she frowned. "What did I say?"

It took a few minutes and a round of projectile vomiting from Boot to right ourselves after the flash, the four of us standing dumbly in the room where the ninth and the eleventh victims had been found, and where the eleventh victim had been taken. Where the eleventh body was there was now a visible rune painted into the ground, one that had been covered by the body.

"The Constellation Killer knew we would check the body out first," I said. "Maybe he's watching or something. He'd activate the flash spell rune underneath the body, and we would back away when the body started making noise. The Portkey would take her in the commotion."

"The Portkey must've been on her underside too," Rachel piped up. "I thought we would've checked her over completely already."

"We were waiting for Healer Pierce," Boot said stiffly. "But evidently his services will not be needed today."

"But why take the body?" Audrey wondered. "He left his previous bodies out for us, but it's like he... I don't know."

"Maybe he's into, you know, and that woman was kinda pretty-"

"Please do not finish that sentence, MacDonald," Boot implored.

"He's trying to distract us," I declared. "Make us look for the dead woman while he prepares for the ritual. She was days old before she was transported here, and who's to say that he hasn't killed the twelfth by now?" Hell, he might've killed the last two by the time I got my little note.

Rachel looked freaked out by the idea. "The ritual could be done already?"

"Could be." Though I doubted it. There had to be a time aspect to the ritual. It wouldn't be that hard to round all twelve muggles and sacrifice them, after all. No, maybe the killer was waiting for something. Not only that, but I doubted the ritual had been done because reality hadn't been shifted back yet. Nobody had been carted off to Azkaban, so the fact the ritual could be time-sensitive was looking likely. "Could be that he needs more than twelve bodies and is going to stop drawing attention to himself by leaving them around. Could be anything..."

At my statement, the room went quiet. The three of them had no reassurance that the ritual hadn't already been performed and they'd be dealing with a new Dark Lord or something equally untoward. Even if they thought the ritual would be harmless to the Ministry or the world as a whole, there would still be an indignant anger at not being able to catch the bad guy. I could sympathise, but since the bad guy's plan hadn't come to fruition yet, I wasn't about to give up or start wallowing in self-loathing.

"It makes sense the eleventh was found here," Audrey said. At the room's collective questioning look, she elaborated. "The other bodies were found in abandoned areas that only got disturbed by those investigating the scene. Since we've already disturbed this area because of the ninth victim, we wouldn't be able to tell if the killer himself had come in personally to set the rune up. We've already disturbed any new tracks or clues this time because we weren't expecting them..."

"Doesn't mean we can't try and look. The killer was here personally to paint that rune, and even though we've been standing all over the scene, we've gotta try."

Boot, for the first time today, acknowledged me with a nod. "While you three do that, I'm going to send Enforcers to the locations where the previous victims were found."

I frowned. "That could be what the killer expects. Us to be distracted."

Boot glared at me. "Do you have any better ideas?"

I didn't, and he left soon after. I joined the girls in our hunt for any mistakes or clues, but there were none. The sun outside started to set, and I felt a familiar pressure start to settle in the back of my neck.

How long would it be before I would have to think about alternate options?

..::..-.-..::..

_December 25th, 1997: Guilt_

The five of us had the manor surrounded. Bulstrode Abode was smack dab in the middle of a large cleaning surrounded by kilometres of forest, a perfect hideaway from the Muggles, warded to high hell to keep undesirable elements out. The manor was gated and fenced off in a ring shape, and we sat at the treeline just beyond the fences. The wards would've made it an unlikely and nigh impenetrable target for an Order raid, but our only interest was in today's Christmas party, complete with chummy Death Eaters enjoying a nice cocktail function in the middle of what they were no doubt viewing as a successful campaign against our side. Today, our plan was to strike back.

The five of us were going to burn Bulstrode Abode down the ground. The Anti-Apparation wards would keep the Death Eaters from escaping the manor through magical means, and we were overall doubtful that they would survive long enough to exit the burning building and start flinging spells at their attackers.

Ron and I were stationed with a clear view of most of the mansion's front and its right side, while Bill and Neville had the back and left covered. By now, Moody had probably dispatched the watchmen on guard and was stationed at the front gates. In three minutes, he would cast the first Fiendfyre, and we would follow.

Ron looked nervous. I said so.

"Can you blame me?" he said incredulously. I couldn't. Though we had not yet used the spell ourselves for fear of burning down Grimmauld Place, Fiendfyre was still incredibly dangerous and notoriously hard to control. Our concentration needed to stay steady and unwavering until the fire hit the manor, a distance that felt longer when it came to controlling the deadliest magical fire in existence.

"Look, I don't expressly like this either, but it'll be a blow to their side." And the Order of the Phoenix really needed a win. Dumbledore had been dead for six months now, and Voldemort was in control of both the Ministry and Hogwarts, openly killing Muggleborns left and right while hunting us down in his spare time. Horcrux hunting was at a dead end - Moody, once we had filled him in, seemed eager to try raiding Malfoy Manor for a Horcrux or two, but that was being saved for the future. Today, we were to simply burn a dozen Death Eaters and a bunch of sympathisers down to the ground in one swift move.

Ron still looked green, so I tried a different tactic. "It's a difficult spell, I know, but you had some of the best concentration back there, and you know it. I also know you wouldn't have volunteered if it wasn't the right thing to do. Just-"

"Harry," he croaked, "I don't need another one of your speeches right now. I'm just..."

I nodded. Ron had been right behind me and Bill in volunteering, and he had worked hard with Moody to perfect his concentration. With no actual Fiendfyre to test, Moody had run the four of us through rigorous little tests in the past two weeks. Kingsley and Tonks could've joined us too, but Kingsley was off at the Ministry to be there for the fallout, and Tonks was on spying duty with Dedalus Diggle. Hermione, meanwhile, had declined to join us for moral reasons. I couldn't blame her for that, though I didn't like her stance. We were at war, after all.

One minute to go. I mentally shuffled my mind with some basic Occlumency techniques. I implored Ron to do the same, and he did, which was probably why Moody paired me up with him in the first place. Even Neville, on his Christmas break after half a year of being tortured at Hogwarts, would probably need reassurance from Bill, who I knew would steel himself and suck it up if it meant keeping his family safe. Good guy, Bill.

Thirty seconds. Tonks and Diggle had both confirmed the presence of several known and prominent Death Eaters, and Diggle had also confirmed that there were no other objects of interest to be found inside. This would be a win. I knew it.

"Ten seconds, Ron," I reminded him, wand out and pointed at the sky. It would do no good to burn down the trees sheltering us, so the spell would be shot into open air before being directed to the manor.

To our left, a torrent of flame arched over the gates, an eagle of pure, deadly, magical fire leading the way up the stone path to the manor's front doors. I didn't hesitate, unleashing my own Fiendfyre. I felt Ron's go off first, a relatively small plume that flickered about unsteadily.

Mine was large, to say the least. Pure power rushed through my veins and out my wand in the form a blazing column of hot white fire with dragon heads riding the flames. I felt my mind sync up with the flames themselves - this was a demon I had created, in the form of pure fire, and I had to control it solely to accomplish my task. Controlling it was harder than throwing off the Imperius - the Fiendfyre was a constant heat and a constant power and keeping it in a straight line was beyond a challenge, let alone directing it towards the manor. It reminded me unpleasantly of trying to stay upright and not fall off of a cursed broom while dealing with a squad of Dementors converging on my location. Times a million.

The heat from the Fiendfyre melted the snow around the manor as mine and Ron's got closer to the easiest access point in the form of the upper floor's windows. The Fiendfyre melted and broke through the glass of the ornate windows, blazing a trail down a hallway and happily leaving stray embers to roast the tapestries and the carpet as it went. I could _see _in my minds-eye how the flames roved down a regal marble staircase, doing a turn and piggybacking on Moody's flames engulfing the large ballroom where our Death Eater friends were throwing a party. Ignoring the screams I could hear and see through my connection to the fire, I left some of the flames to mingle with Moody's, taking a separate flume back up the stairs again to destroy the other rooms best I could.

Ron had dropped control of his Fiendfyre as soon as it had breached the house, I noticed absently. I think I was the only one left controlling my fire at the moment. My flames took everything - consumed people and travelled down and up and sideways, destroying bedrooms and studies and dungeon prisons-

I stopped, snapping my wand up and severing the stream of flames coming out of it. This couldn't- How-

How could Diggle _not know_?

Bulstrode Abode was burning, its inhabitants being roasted by our creation. I wanted to leave immediately, to flee the scene and spend years repressing it. But I didn't. I couldn't. The fire wouldn't let me leave. I watched as the flames destroyed the place, knowing that our out-of-control blaze would probably devour the entire forest with it. Knowing that it was killing innocents locked up in Bulstrode's dungeon right now.

The great stately old house shuddered, a sharp dark wave shooting outwards from the centre of the flames, a telltale sign that the wards had been destroyed. Without waiting around and forcibly disconnecting myself from the fire, I grabbed Ron by the arm and Apparated us both away. I didn't know if any of the Death Eaters had survived the blaze and had Apparated away when the wards went down. I just appeared at the small alleyway a minute's walk away from Grimmauld Place, Ron at my side.

We walked silently and robotically, vaguely registering that Bill, Neville and Moody were soon following us. I was on edge the entire walk back, looking about warily at every noise made by the oblivious Muggles.

"You're back," Hermione said as we trudged into Grimmauld's basement kitchen. Her face fell as she took in our generally dishevelled states, her look a mixture of pity and resignation. "Tonks is upstairs."

"Where's Diggle?" I demanded. Ron, Neville and Bill all took places around the dinner table, either sitting down or leaning on something, each looking shellshocked. Moody stood at the entryway, silently observing us.

"Diggle? He didn't-"

"I cannot fucking believe that bastard missed the dungeons," Bill said fiercely.

"He what?" Ron asked.

"You cut off your control of your Fiendfyre early, Ron," I said. "You didn't see the flames travel down to the dungeon level I didn't know existed. Nobody saw fit to tell us there were prisoners there."

"Innocents," Neville murmured.

Moody said nothing, and Hermione started to cry.

"Tonks!" I shouted at the roof. I heard the sound of her tripping over something above me, followed by her pounding steps down the stairs. She had not exactly been the most social person since her parents had died, and had been keeping to herself, right now probably trying to break into one of Sirius's liquor stashes up in the study.

She sidled past Moody and caught the looks on our faces, frowning. Her hair had been in a perpetual state of mousy and flat lately, and the dark tidings brought on by a lonely Christmas had given her an even more depressed look than usual. "Harry? Are you all right?"

"I'm peachy," I said bitterly. "Where the hell is Diggle? We need to chat about him not telling us there was a fucking dungeon full of prisoners at the ash pile where Bulstrode Abode once was!"

Tonks paled. "He didn't return with you?"

"No! We thought that he left when you did! What the hell happened?"

"We went in and spied a bit, and I distracted the crowd while he wandered off to check for anything of interest," she explained. "I got my numbers and disappeared, meeting up with him at our exit point. We sent the message to Mad-Eye, but Diggle didn't believe... He wasn't sure of the intelligence I gathered." She sighed, her frown increasing. "He said my head wasn't on straight and I was liable to get things wrong. He went back into the ballroom and said he would be out ten minutes before you lot showed up."

Ron cursed, and I just stared at Tonks, daring her to say something. Anything.

She didn't. Dammit.

"Well that's just fucking great!" I burst out, slamming my fist into the nearest wall. Yeah, that one hurt. "Killed a dozen Death Eaters, who knows how many of their family members and any number of Muggleborns. Oh, and we lost an extra wand because of sheer stupidity! Go us!"

"You volunteered," Moody said gruffly. "You all volunteered."

Neville shot a glare at Moody. "Maybe you should've told us about the spell. About how we'd feel the flames burn those people alive."

"You could've read up on it," Moody spat. "And you-"

Neville's face turned a dark shade. "Just shut up! I don't need to hear justifications or- or-"

"I thought maybe the Carrows had hardened you, boy, but I guess not. You don't even have half the balls Frank and Alice did-"

A sharp little spell from Neville's wand spat out and blasted Moody's wooden leg to splinters in an instant. Moody went down hard, slamming his head against the ground as did. Nobody helped him up - we were all too busy looking at Neville. Instead of anger on his face, I saw tiredness and a bone-deep wariness. Not only that, but he was confused. Conflicted.

"I'm going home," he announced, stepping over Moody and heading for the Floo.

We heard the Floo activate a second time minutes later. Moody had angrily fixed his leg and was righting himself as Kingsley Shacklebolt walked into the room, his face grave.

"Reports confirm twenty-four people were killed in the fire," he said.

"That we know of," I said with a snort. "Twenty people on their side, plus who knows how many of ours were locked up in the dungeons."

Kingsley's forehead creased. "There were prisoners?"

"Poor intelligence, Diggle's fault," I replied snappishly. "He's dead now, by the way. Didn't get out in time. We burned him alive."

"That... is not good."

Ron snorted. "What was your first clue, eh?"

"Dammit Weasley, we are at war," Moody growled. "If you're not prepared to do what needs to be done-"

"I am! But-"

"No buts! No second-guessing! We are at war, and we can't afford to hide under the covers anymore! We burn down one of their houses, sure, but how many people have they killed the same way? How many people on our side have died in their sleep, burning with their wives and their children-"

"If only they had magical dustbins to alert them!" Ron said sarcastically.

Both of Moody's eyes focused on him. Ron stared back, defiant. "Oh, so you do want to be one of those hiding under the covers, eh Weasley? That's fine. I don't need you out there."

"Fine."

Moody pointed to Tonks, Bill and Hermione in turn. "Do you have any problems you'd like to share now?"

Tonks and Bill shook their heads, while Hermione just stayed quiet.

"It's guilt, that's what it is. We're the ones still alive and we're the ones who have to kill to survive some more. We're the ones who have to do the dirty things, and now we feel guilt because of it. Well suck it up! The longer we sit around and feel bad about things we can't change, the longer we'll suffer for it!"

"Moody!" I barked. "Maybe you should give the spiel a rest for now."

"Spiel?" he asked coldly. "I got to where I am today by taking the necessary steps, and at the end of the day, I'll know I died fighting for a cause worth fighting for. Will you?"

"Like you even have to ask."

"Well good! Constant vigilance! Learn and live it, or you'll end up dead." He took in our less-than-heartened faces and sneered. "Take the next few days off then, if you must. Meanwhile, I'll go do what I have to in order to win the war. Good luck with your moping."

He left with a series of clunks, murmuring to himself and occasionally growling like a terrier. Kingsley cleared his throat, his face rather blank.

"I'd do what we had to every time," he said, sounding rather calm about the whole thing. I could never get a good read on Kingsley, except the calm. It was a refreshing outlook. Calm - everything will work out as it's supposed to. "I think it's best not to dwell on the past now. Alastor and I must talk strategy, so if you'll excuse me..."

He followed Moody's leave, and Bill did the same soon after, getting up from his seat and leaving without a word. Ron and Hermione drifted off over the next few hours, which were mostly spent sitting at the table and saying nothing. Tonks and I remained, staring at the table in front of us.

"You're going to sleep tonight," Tonks said suddenly. It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded tiredly. "Yes."

"The others aren't. The guilt is going to keep them up all night. They'll have waking nightmares and..."

"I know."

She peered at me, but I didn't return the look. "So why are you going to be able to sleep tonight, Harry?"

"I'm repressing. Years of practice," I said wryly.

She snorted. "Right. Harry Potter can't afford to feel guilt at the moment. Take a number and please wait in the lobby."

"That's about it."

"So why? How?"

I finally moved my gaze from the table and looked at her. She looked so damn old for someone not even past her mid-twenties. Old, tired, depressed and guilt-ridden. "I can't afford to feel guilt right now, Tonks. I just... I know what it does to me. And because I know me, I know that I'll feel what everyone else is feeling, but a million times worse. I know that the guilt'll cripple me if I let it get to me. So I repress it. I block it out and I..."

"And what happens when it catches up to you?"

"How 'bout I worry about that after all the excitement's over."

She stood up, shook her head at something I couldn't understand, and left.

Guilt was an all-encompassing feeling, strong and thick and suffocating all at once. It would terrorise my emotions, make me second guess my decisions and make me a liability. I knew I couldn't hold it all in forever. Some day I'd probably go catatonic.

But that wasn't today, and it wasn't going to be tomorrow. Voldemort and the war wouldn't let me be affected by the guilt. The guilt would get in the way, and I couldn't have that right now.

I slept that night. I was the only one in the house who did.

..::..-.-..::..

_The Next Day: What Do Twelve Dead Bodies Have In Common?_

The eleventh victim had still not been located. But, in a bit of good news, Loki the goblin had gotten his grubby little paws on something worthwhile, and we planned to meet up in the late afternoon. I was worried, of course. Crazy Muggle-killing wizard with a ritual out to destroy my contract? Yeah, that's pretty low on the scale of good things. Speaking of things be low on the scale of good things, I received a new note from my newest pen pal as the morning died down.

_"Mr Potter,_

_The time is near. By this time tomorrow, things that were once as they should be will be again once more. I gather that you'd rather be here in person for this one, so I'll throw you a bone:_

_Tell me, what do twelve dead bodies have in common?_

_Thank you for your time,_

_The Constellation Killer."_

I couldn't very much predict why he sent the note to me. Was my presence literally required for the ritual? I knew that even if I could figure out where the ritual was taking place, I might either be walking into a trap or walking into a possible solution to this whole mess before anybody shifted reality back to how it was. But I knew me very well, and I knew that I would always go running into a possible trap if it meant I still had a chance to stop this killer.

Hmm. I think I'd need some explosives. Lots of them.

But all that balderdash about thinking ahead could wait until I could actually find the killer's location. Upon my afternoon meeting with Loki, I immediately set about silencing him with a spell.

"This had better not be a useless lead, Loki," I said. "You and I both know what we have so far on this case, but I'll summarise anyway. If it's a useless lead, you better leave before I get a chance to kill you. Deal?"

Loki only nodded, scowling.

"The Constellation Killer. Born, I don't know. Died, if I can help it, tomorrow. Age, race, sex, blood status - all unknown. I think Dover's theory about him being pureblood is solid. That, or he's just a very smart half-and-half with intimate knowledge of rituals practised in the old days. Or he just found a book. Either way, he found out about my contract, and he picked out a rebirthing ritual that would undo my reality shift. Everything that we erased on January 12th, 1999 would be undone. Why? I don't know. Shits and giggles or some sort of ransom. Maybe even justice. He could be the well-intentioned good guy, for all I know. Regardless of his motives, he's a few steps ahead of me, and we need to catch up.

"He kills Muggles. Either the ritual requires non-magical blood, or it's a convenience thing. He uses the Marius ritual knife to kill them. After they die, he brands them with a different sign of the zodiac, each mark corresponding to the sign the dead Muggle was born under. I don't know what specific ritual he's doing. Your book was useless, so he probably has his own special recipe or something. We've guessed that the ritual knife collects the blood of the Muggles it kills, and then that will somehow be combined with the wand that branded in those signs. Spells leave imprints on wands, you know, so I'd bet the wand will only ever cast the branding spells for the sake of the ritual.

"We know he's killed eleven of the twelve, but I think it's very likely the twelfth has already been killed. He doesn't need the bodies, apparently. He either Portkey'd them away because he's lazy, showing off or... Or he wanted to catch my attention. He wanted to eventually lead me to this point, so he could get me to wherever he's doing the ritual. He might need my blood." I snorted. "Voldemort wannabe, bully for him.

"Twelve dead bodies have something in common, and I'll bet it's the marks. Born under the sign that gets burnt into their flesh, but apart from that, the killings are random. The tenth was from Italy, for God's sake! The Portkeys were one-use and are inert now. Our only lead to the Marius knife ended with my partner nearly getting killed. I asked you, Loki, to find me something useful. About the knife, the ritual, the wand. Anything. Can you say that you have, Loki? Think carefully before opening your mouth..."

I reversed the spell, and Loki spoke immediately, "The knife was removed from the Marius vault eight months ago."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I was told that Marius Manor never got packed up. Nothing got stored in the vault. But the knife was?"

Loki handed me a piece of parchment, and I gave it a quick once over. It was written in a modern dialect of Gobbledegook, and while I wasn't fluent in either spoken word nor written one, I gathered it was an inventory of sorts.

"We do decadely inventories of all of our highest security vaults," Loki explained, snatching the paper back. "The Marius family vault is not one of them, so only six inventories have been completed in the last ninety-four years."

"One every fifteen years."

He nodded, handing me a roll of parchment this time. I didn't bother reading it, instead indicating to him that he'd better summarise. "I had to procure that from the archives myself. Dreadful task, took me four days."

"Same with the Ministry's," I quipped. Loki flashed a shark-like smile in agreement.

"That roll of parchment in your hands is a summation of the paperwork from over ninety years ago. Lord Marius, the last surviving member of his house, did in fact have a will."

"Dover's detective skills need work," I muttered, immediately feeling a slight pang of guilt for the remark. None of that now!

"Your friend wasn't being incompetent, Potter, he was just following the law. He went through official goblin channels to check our records." He snatched the roll of parchment back from me, sharp talon-like fingers nicking my hand as he did. "The will of Lord Marius stated his belongings were to be packed up into his vault, and gold straight from the same vault would be used to pay for upkeep of his manor. No pack of thieves could've breached our wards in the forties as the tales go. The inventory I just showed you was the most recent one - the knife and all of his belongings from the manor were still in the vault only four years ago."

"Why keep it all boxed up?"

"Lord Marius does have overseas relatives, and his will states that until, and I quote, 'that half-blood bastard son of mine has a descendant that marries into a pure family, the vault stays shut'. He does have enough gold in the vault to maintain it and the manor for at least another few decades..."

So the knife was in the vault for quite a while... "But the Malfoy family gave the Blacks the knife as a wedding present."

"A copy. The Malfoy family claimed the imitation of the Marius ritual knife as their own, which started the rumours about the pack of thieves raiding Marius Manor in the forties. The goblins need not lie about these affairs. It's all in the paperwork."

I nodded. "And Dover? He even checked our Ministry archives, the poor bugger."

"As for your Ministry, can you honestly say it's not that easy to break in and steal the relevant files?" I shook my head. 'We Have Lax Security' was the Ministry's unofficial motto. "But with us, like I said, he went through official channels. The archivist goblin on duty, Bladvak, gave him the paperwork we had, and that did not include the Marius will or the inventories."

"My killer has a goblin on his side." I reached out and brushed a Legilimency probe at the forefront of Loki's mind, just in case. He was just as confused as I was, and hoping to stop the killer before the rebirthing ritual. Apparently, he thought I would kill him if the contract got breached.

Well, he wasn't exactly _wrong_ in thinking that...

"Indeed. Somebody of my race tampered with those archives, keeping the files hidden from any prying wizards. But he did not anticipate anybody checking our exclusive archives. When I went to go check them, I indeed found the will and the inventories, both items that should've been in the archives we make available for the wizards."

"Great. Dover nearly got killed because of some missing paperwork and urban legends caused by the Malfoy family being bastards," I summarised. "Okay... Excepting the fact the knife is being used to kill the Muggles, how could you be sure it got removed from the Marius vault eight months ago?"

"It was all in the records. About eight months ago, the Marius vault was opened and somebody withdrew some of its contents. The public paperwork of the incident has disappeared, of course, but the goblin paperwork remains."

"Who would have access to the Marius vault then? His overseas descendants?"

"There are four ways of getting into the Marius vault. We can open it for inventories, but stealing objects or gold right out of a vault breaks several of our more punishable laws." Loki himself had broken the laws quite a bit in service of me. Good goblin, that Loki. "The second way is to use Marius family blood for access, but the blood would have to come from a straight descendant, and not distant cousin or something. The third way is via key. The Marius family handed out keys to immediate spouses that could be revoked at their behest. The fourth way is to break into the vault somehow, but since we have paperwork..."

"Had to be by blood or by key."

"It was a key," Loki confirmed. "Your killer, or at least someone he was manipulating, used a key to get into the vault, removed several items, and then later had his goblin contact remove the wizard paperwork so no official evidence could be found."

"So who leaves a key lying around like that for almost a century?" I asked. "Lord Marius was the last of his family, and I bet that he would've wanted the keys destroyed as part of his will, right?"

"He did indeed. He was literally the last Marius. The entire family was gone, including those he had given the keys to. The keys were tethered to those who had them when they were alive. With the key holders dead, the keys were able to be summoned by a powerful goblin spell. They were brought together and destroyed after the manor's contents were stored."

Complications. Fantastic. "Apart from the knife, what was removed from the vault?"

"A sizeable amount of gold and three unicorn core wands."

"Unicorn core? The ritual's wand could use a unicorn core..."

"And gold to buy the other necessary ingredients from less reputable markets, obviously."

Okay, okay, okay. I need to think. The killer had used a Marius key to get into the vault, retrieving the knife, the wands and the money for the ritual. It couldn't not be the Marius knife. With a ritual like this, a copy of the knife wouldn't have the same old magics. The killer would want his ritual to be perfect. He had covered his tracks well by having his goblin friend hide the relevant files.

I took a deep breath. In, out, up, down. Calm now. "Loki, I want you to look at any more Marius family records that you can find and that you think will be helpful. I'm thinking that someone faked their deaths or something way back when. As such, the key wouldn't have been summoned with the others. Maybe he's had kids over the years, and one of them is our killer. I don't know."

"I will check again," Loki said. "I have as much to lose as you do if the contract is breached."

I shrugged. "Not really. You're a good little weasel, and if anybody can get themselves out of a rough patch, it's you."

He sneered at me. "Of course, I had assumed you would kill me to keep me from talking if you found yourself backed into a corner."

I shrugged again. I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. "I'm going to check the Ministry archives. If you find anything at all-"

"I'll contact you."

We went our separate ways. I pondered the nature of this conundrum I had found myself in as I twisted and turned through the halls of Gringotts.

What do twelve bodies have in common? How did the killer get a key into the Marius vault? Who's his goblin contact? How the hell did he find out about my contract? How the hell did he sic Remus on me? Was he expecting me to die in the attack, or was he expecting me to die a few hours from now? Would the ritual actually work as planned? How messy would the fallout be? Could I save my friends after everybody started remembering the Light side had their fair share of darkness in the war? Bulstrode Abode flashed in my mind. I didn't want anybody else remembering that. Besides the prosecution, the guilt of the incident would begin to eat Ron and Neville alive. Again.

It still affected me, after all.

Guilt was a funny thing. If you concentrate on other things, guilt went away. I could concentrate on the warmness of Tonks's bed and forget I killed Remus in the alleyway beside her flat building, putting him down like a rabid dog and not like a sick friend who had become a pawn of the Constellation Killer. On days further away from the renewal, I could blank my mind and repress it all. I could forget that I had to kill people, real human beings despite their crimes. I could forget that I was taking new extremes in order to renew the contract every few months or few weeks.

I repressed my guilt over Kingsley, my guilt over Bulstrode Abode and the innocents we slaughtered, and guilt over Remus.

But I knew that the guilt would hit hard if the rebirthing ritual destroyed the contract. As long as it took, I would do drastic things in order to fix everything. I might fail the second time. The pressure would build up, and people would end up dead. My relationships would disappear in the blink of an eye. Everyone I worked so hard for to get their happy endings would hate me for making them remember things again, or hate me for raping their minds in a move I thought to be for the best. No relationships to curb me meant extra pressure, which meant choosing to do bad things for as long as it takes, which would lead to guilt. And I could only repress such a guilt for so long.

I really needed to solve this case. I had the relevant information. The puzzle pieces were there but they needed to fall into place. Such was my conviction that I vaulted into the Ministry archives when I arrived back at the office, heading straight for the Marius files.

"Harry!" Audrey called out. She had seen me head straight for the archives. "Harry, what are you looking for?"

"Nothing serious," I replied. "Just... I think I may have a lead on-"

"The missing body?" Audrey guessed, looking relieved. "Thank God! I think Robards is going to flay me if we don't at least find the eleventh-"

Eleven. One removed from the magic number. Twelve. Dead bodies. What would twelve dead bodies have in common? But the more important question: Why had the eleventh body been taken?

Oh.

The Constellation Killer really wanted me there when he did the ritual. I don't think I would've put it together this fast if not for the fact he took the eleventh body.

I laughed suddenly, feeling like a fool. Audrey was sure as hell looking at me like I was, glaring at me in a very Percy-like manner. "Audrey, a couple of days ago I gave you some paperwork to do for me, remember?"

"Yes," she said stiffly.

"There were forms there, right? Muggle forms for us to sign so that we could release the tenth victim's body to the family, right?"

"Yeah..." she said slowly. "I got given a couple more from Boot after you left, though. Turns out Marco's family didn't want to have him shipped back to Italy. Too much hassle and money involved. They buried him here... yesterday, I think."

"I need to get to Scotland Yard," I said, sudden to her but it made perfect sense to me. "Their archives are better. More Muggle, too."

"Harry, what's going on?"

"Audrey, I think you and MacDonald have done an excellent job catching up to this case. Take the rest of the night off, okay? I'll call you if I need you." At the words 'night off', her eyes lit up a bit. "I think I can take it from here."

Without waiting for an answer, I left the room and took a very harried trip to New Scotland Yard. A few spells and the flashing of a little identification card I'd pilfered off my desk, and I was stuck in a stuffy room with a perky blonde archivist, sitting at a Muggle computer and tapping away at the keyboard.

I knew the names. Robert Goren, Cid Lawrence, Marco Marcone and the seven that came before them. The records all said the same thing. When Dover and I had gotten the Muggle files after we found the eighth's body, we had copied out the relevant information for our own use. The files we created were concise and to the point, as requested by Robards. They all skimmed over a couple of details we deemed irrelevant at the time. We had even dug up the first eight bodies, but nobody had even noticed.

The ten victims we had handed over to their families had all been buried at the same cemetery.

What do twelve dead bodies have in common?

Where they are gathered for a ritual.

Where were ten of them already located?

One cemetery - Saint Michael's. The tenth victim was from Italy for God's sake, and no family wouldn't spare every bit of money they had to have their son brought home and buried there. The Constellation Killer had used the Imperius Curse or something, magically compulsing each family into having each body buried at St Michael's. There had been no cremations.

We had long assumed by the killer leaving the bodies out that he had no more use for them. We were wrong. He had them all buried at one location, a little cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Small, nondescript and far enough away so as not to be on top of Ministry sensors. Throw up a ward or two, gather all twelve bodies there and the ritual could be pulled off without a hitch. I had read up on the zodiac rituals involving actual body sacrifices too. Twelve dead Muggles, actual blood and flesh sacrifices, each marked with the sign of the zodiac they were born under. We'd been misled.

I left New Scotland Yard as soon as I had arrived, no doubt mystifying the Muggles by my magical exit. The killer had wanted me to come to St Michael's, to figure all of this out. He probably wanted to use me as a sacrifice. I couldn't bring in any other Aurors for this. I couldn't risk the killer taking off and performing the ritual somewhere else, a little more privately. Only two other people knew about my reality shift, and Loki was useless in a fight. I was alone.

Why tonight, though? Maybe not right now, but as soon as midnight struck, it would be December 21st. The killings had started approximately six months earlier.

It hit me easily enough. The solstices.

The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, was June 21st. The winter solstice, the longest night of the year, was December 21st. Special magical properties walked hand-in-hand with certain days of the year, and use of the solstices in conjunction with a zodiac ritual made enough sense.

But why St Michael's? I didn't want to go in completely oblivious. Knowledge was power, and I believed in the power of planning ahead at the best of times. I needed to know who I was up against. Who was the Marius key-holder who played these games and ultimately wanted me? Did he or she have a weakness?

The archives room at the Ministry of Magic welcomed me once more. I spent minutes just tapping my foot irritably - the feeling of knowing the facts and not being able to use them was not unlike the feeling of needing to urinate in the middle of a big exam. I needed to walk into a possible trap, figure out a way to avoid getting trapped, stop the ritual, get the bad guy to tell me how I screwed up, murder the fuck out of him and then go to Tonks's to make sure I still had the girl. All in a day's work.

I paused my reading of the file about Octavius Marius, a man who had died over six hundred years earlier. The key... There would be no bond between the key and the person owning it if the person was dead. Dead meant no magical bond. But there was more than one way to avoid a permanent death, and all of them were magical. A magical bond that would remain in the afterlife if need be...

"Thank you for your time," I said aloud. It rolled off of my tongue in a very familiar way. The note had made the words sound polite, yet patronising. I had used them the same way. A magical bond that would remain beyond death...

I checked two files. Both made the picture a little clearer. The first file was of a shady individual who had done Azkaban time. His criminal career had started at the age of thirteen for illegally creating a Portkey in the middle of the summer hols.

The second file was of a man who was born in 1840, married a woman named Romana Marius in 1867, and died in 1887. A man whose current status could be described as 'not quite' dead. A man who could still have a magical bond to the key gifted to him at his wedding a long time ago.

The dead man had been buried at St Michael's in his own crypt. He officially registered with the Ministry as a ghost, taking a job at the _Daily Prophet _ten years ago. I had dealt with him several times before. I had shoved him away from crime scenes with the words spoken politely with a side of patronising.

For example, at the warehouse where Robert Goren had been found. "Thank you for your time, Mr Jensen."

Magical creatures had a sense about them. Ghosts were magical imprints, and as such, magical creatures. This ghost was a reporter - he could find things out. He could see the inconsistencies in my reality shift. He could hire a surly man fresh out of Azkaban to do the dirty work. The Constellation Killer was Arcturus Fallon, but he was doing it at the command and monetary recompensation from his boss, Maximillian Jensen.

Twelve Muggles murdered with the ritual knife retrieved from the Marius vault by Fallon, who had used Jensen's old family key to get in. Twelve bodies gathered at the burial place of Maximillian Jensen.

I'd need a plan. I'd need explosives. I'd need a portable exorcism kit.

I checked my watch. Not long until midnight. If they could, Jensen and Fallon would be doing the rebirthing ritual without me first chance they get. If they actually needed me, they'd wait. Maybe they'd send another note. Either way, I would go to them.

There would be no breach of contract tonight.

..::..-.-..::..

To be concluded in Chapter Five: Twelve...

..::..-.-..::..

BAM! One chapter left, easily as long as chapter three, but probably ten times more action-packed. Watch for: the final showdown, three (maybe five) plot twists and a conclusion of some sort! Keep the reviews and the alerts and the stuff coming, guys. About a week 'til next chapter, as per usual. Peace!


	5. Chapter Five: Twelve

Well, this is it. A big thanks to all who reviewed/alerted/favourited after the last chapter. This last one is another monster size-wise, and features a nice big comprehensive timeline of events thus far before we get to the main action. Anyways, enjoy!

..::..-.-..::..

Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. This fanfiction is a non-profit thing written for enjoyment of myself and my readers.

Breach of Contract: Twelve Signs.

Written by Matt Silver

..::..-.-..::..

The Events So Far ::

June, 1997: Dumbledore is killed by Snape. The alternate divergence of the Breach of Contract backstory starts here.

August, 1997: Remus Lupin leaves Tonks before they can start a proper relationship, deciding to join up with Greyback's werewolves and try to subvert them from the inside. Voldemort takes over the Ministry, killing Scrimgeour along the way. Auror Dover's first year as an Auror is off to a great start.

September, 1997: Harry, Ron and Hermione go on the run and start Horcrux hunting. They break into the Ministry and retrieve the Slytherin's locket. Meanwhile, the Carrows and Snape start their terror campaign at Hogwarts, torturing people left and right. Neville steps up and starts up the DA again.

October, 1997: Harry, Ron and Hermione make a conscious choice to run back to the Order for help. They explain to several key folk about the Horcruxes, and Moody starts a campaign in earnest. The Order wards Grimmauld to high hell and use it as a headquarters. Muggleborns and other enemies of Voldemort go missing or end up dead.

November, 1997: Tonks's parents are killed. She and Harry bond over that, but she gets into a horrible depression. Horcrux hunting stays futile as all heck. Despite Remus's best efforts, he begins to succumb to the wolf side of him and goes feral.

December, 1997: Neville joins up with the Order while on holiday, and several Death Eaters are gathered and interrogated. Moody devises a plan to kill a bunch of Death Eaters at Bulstrode Abode, and on Christmas, Harry, Ron, Bill, Neville and Moody burn down the manor, killing not only the Death Eaters, but their families, an unlucky Order member, and several dozen innocents locked up in a dungeon prison.

January, 1998: Moody captures Rabastan Lestrange and lets Neville question him. Although the Order is able to gather intelligence on Malfoy Manor, Neville's torture gets out of hand and Rabastan is killed. Many in the Order witness this event.

The Malfoy Manor raid goes off without a hitch. Pettigrew is killed by Hary and no Horcruxes are found. Several prisoners are rescued, including Arvark the goblin Chieftain and his assistant Loki. Both swear life debts to Harry.

February-May, 1998: The war hits a bloody stride. Horcrux hunting is put off while the Order does battle with the Death Eaters in open battles. Many are killed as collateral damage, Unforgivables are tossed around, and people die brutally. A lot of bad shit happens. After Moody's death, Harry himself murders and tortures and lowers himself and the Order down to Death Eater levels.

Late May, 1998: The Battle of Hogwarts. Harry calls in Arvark's life debt and retrieves Hufflepuff's Cup, while Ravenclaw's Diadem, Slytherin's Locket and Nagini are all destroyed during the battle. Several people are killed, such as Parvati Patil and Fred Weasley, not to mention Death Eaters such as Rookwood, Bellatrix Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy and Snape. Voldemort himself uses the Killing Curse and destroys the Horcrux that inhabits Harry's mind. Harry survives the curse and kills Voldemort somehow. It was spectacular, but unimportant now.

June, 1998-October, 1998: Rebuilding begins, and Kingsley Shacklebolt becomes Minister for Magic. Harry, Ron and Terry Boot join up with the Aurors to hunt down the Death Eaters. Greyback and his group run off into the wild, and Remus briefly tries to liberate the women and children before succumbing to the wolf yet again. Most of the Death Eaters are killed or Azkaban'd, though some buy their way out, like Christian Selwyn, Verdant Greengrass and Draco Malfoy. Those who did not actively participate in the war start to cry foul about the Order not getting prosecuted for their war crimes, and Kingsley, who recently lost his wife and son, starts to listen.

Mid-November, 1998: Neville is arrested. Chaos and confusion reigns and the picture becomes clear to the Order: they will be tried for their crimes. Harry is understandably a little angry at that, and believes that the purebloods have corrupted Kingsley.

December, 1998: Outlook on Neville's upcoming trial looks bleak, and from there, the rest of the Order will fall until Harry is finally prosecuted. He visits Kingsley and gets the full story - how Kingsley believes the war was won the wrong way, and how all he has left is justice, pure and true. Harry kills him for his betrayal, and sets about creating an elaborate fire that claimed the Minister's life. The Wizengamot puts a puppet in charge, while Harry looks for a solution to his current problem with his goblin friends.

January, 1999: Arvark and Loki come through, and Harry learns of a contract that he can create in order to shift reality itself. He can erase events, memories, perceptions and manipulate physical documentation of events. He cannot bring people back to life, and he may've left some inconsistencies, but he does it because he believes it to be his only option. He captures Draco Malfoy on the 12th of January, kills the last Malfoy as the first sacrifice, and shifts reality. The contract is now bound to him, and must be renewed before a set deadline every few months of so.

February, 1999: Harry and Tonks stumble upon the last stand of Greyback's werewolf group. Harry finds Remus Lupin alive and well, and, at the old man's behest, hides him and fakes his death.

February, 1999 - November, 2001: Life moves on. Harry deals with normal things, like his partner Dover's incompetence or his bosses Boot and Robards playing politics at work. He continues to renew the contract by killing bad guys and former Death Eaters. Tonks resigns from Auror fieldwork and starts teaching trainees, and her and Harry become best friends. Meanwhile, Harry continues to see Remus, regular meetings that tread over old ground over and over, and usually end unpleasantly for both parties involved.

November 7, 2001: Events of Chapter One: Eight.

November 28th-November 30th, 2001: Events of Chapter Two: Nine.

December 13th-December 15th, 2001: Events of Chapter Three: Ten.

December 16th-December 20th, 2001: Events of Chapter Four: Eleven

..::..-.-..::..

Chapter Five: Twelve

..::..-.-..::..

_Approaching Midnight, December 20th, 2001: The Twelve Signs_

Sometimes, I was very glad I could block it all out. I shifted reality because some bad things happened and I wanted everybody to have a happy ending, and while I could probably reconcile that with my conscience, if it wasn't for the bleed-through effect, I'd probably be a gibbering mess of guilt. The enormity of shifting reality weighs on my very being a lot more than that prophecy ever did. Maybe my contract decided to be nice to me. The theory behind rewriting reality itself never mentioned anything like this, though, to be fair, they were just theories before Arvark and Loki sat me down and showed me a recipe and handed me over a barebones contract to fill out.

I called it a bleed-through effect. I think it's because I erased or rewrote a lot of events that happened to me as well as other people. Because I was under the proper wards, the shift didn't erase my memories or anything, but sometimes it was like it had. Sometimes, I'd pick out a memory I know nobody else has, and I'd block it. Repress it to the back of my mind and forget that I felt guilt over the events that played out. Not only my individual memories had been affected - apparently everything could be repressed or blocked out to an extent. It made it easier to look people in the eye. I knew it would make it easier to make love to Tonks, simply blocking out the guilt and the pressure and feeling the happy ending I was crafting for myself.

Tonight, that ability and the contract that gave birth to it are being challenged. There's a ghost who wants to pull off a rebirthing ritual and reset reality back to how it was, and he hired a seedy former Azkabanee to help pull it off. Twelve Muggles have been murdered, innocents butchered and branded, their families' minds twisted into burying their loved ones out where the ghost himself was buried.

I sat across the way from St Michael's and checked over the equipment I had dummied together in the last fifteen minutes. My deep robe pockets made odd noises as miniature explosives clinked against materials needed for a quick and dirty exorcism. I ignored the noise and instead concentrated on the detailed little ward map I had conjured up. In preparation for their ritual, Jensen and Fallon had gone all out with keeping this little cemetery off the grid for the night. Various wards to keep the Muggles away, a few tricky ones to prevent Ministry sensors from catching any strong bursts of magic, and a number of trap wards designed to keep those entering the area locked up if they tried to leave.

Those last ones were definitely for me.

St Michael's was, like most good cemeteries, away from people. Just off the road from an outer suburb area not unlike Little Whinging, St Michael's was basically a large ditch surrounded by three high hills and some expansive forest. The forest most likely got chopped back every few years to make extra room for graves and such, though St Michael's wasn't particularly large by any standards. Having checked the wards, I strolled across the road and took up position on one of the overlooking hills, getting a nice view of the place.

Gravestones dotted the place haphazardly, some tall, some small and some too ornate and overly lavish for a graveyard. Statues of angels with hands covering their faces took up sentry and formed a border of sorts - the cemetery was not gated or fenced off. Looming over the statues were tall lampposts to light up the area at night, the dull yellow lights flickering weakly. Three crypts took up positions near what I'd roughly call the middle of the graveyard, and just off to the side of the three of them I could see where the ritual was going to take place.

The large runic pentagram was my first clue, the sign burned into the grass and illuminated by an old sickly green colour that lit up the cemetery more than the lampposts did. Twelve stone pedestals stood at equal distance from one another around the circle, with twelve coffins of varying sizes and models propped up on the pedestals at a slight angle. Floating above each of the coffins was a zodiac symbol, the signs hanging lazily in the air like a Dark Mark and coloured a similar bright green as the pentagram was. A flash of pearly white caught my eye, and I spotted Maximillian Jensen's ghost.

He was only forty-seven when he died, and his current transparency removed the more visible age lines and made him look even younger than he was when he died. Forty-seven, in wizard's terms, is an unfortunately young age to die at, barring wars and the like, but Jensen never carried himself as the mourning ghost type. No, he carefully projected himself as genial and dignified, the nicest pureblood you'd ever meet. But it was an act. The dignified air about him slipped when he was emoting, and it proved to me that forty years of practice while alive and a hundred years of practice as a ghost does not make for the perfect pureblood if it's not in his nature. Sure, he was as arrogant and opportunistic as the best of them, but he was slightly rebellious in a way I could never quite put a finger on. Unpredictable, even.

Jensen floated lazily above the pentagram, his ghostly feet almost dipping into the small black cauldron sitting in the direct centre harmlessly. Under his watchful eye, Arcturus Fallon stood outside of the pentagram and carefully levitated something into the cauldron from a distance. Fallon was a sour-looking fellow who rarely talked, a constant frown marring his hawkish features. Dark hair cut short lay atop his sharp head, and he was very tall, but did carry himself in that awkward gangly way some did. Despite the little frown on his face, he appeared calm and collective as he levitated some more ingredients into the cauldron, including, I noticed, the Marius ritual knife, a large silver blade coated in dried blood.

Fallon was my actual killer, but Jensen was the brains behind the operation. The wards around the graveyard had no anti-Portkey wards, so I assumed that Fallon would have his own emergency escape Portkey on his person. He left his position from outside the circle and walked towards the largest of the three crypts, the name Jensen emblazoned on the front in garish font. The crypt's doors were open, but from this angle I couldn't see if anything was inside. As Fallon gathered one last ingredient and levitated it into the cauldron, I levelled my wand on my forearm and took aim. I'd only have one shot.

Spells from a distance were tricky. Magic had this annoying tendency to simply dissipate into nothingness after it travelled a certain length, and someone with great power or using a finely tuned spell could make the distance I was attempting.

_"Stupefy!" _I thought. A sharp red lance of energy materialised out of the tip of my wand, and I reared my shoulder back and _threw _the spell, the Stunning Spell becoming beam-like as it travelled. Jensen let out a sharp cry as he spotted the spell first, but Fallon's attempt to turn and figure out where the spell was coming from ended with the red beam striking his neck and knocking him unconscious immediately. I didn't wait for him to hit the ground before I started to run down the steep hillside, my wand out and carefully trying to avoid jostling the tools in my pockets. At the bottom of the hill, I vaulted my way over a couple of graves and flicked a second Stunner towards Fallon's unconscious form.

"So you came!" Jensen said jovially, having not moved from his position above the cauldron, which was now bubbling. "I was starting to think you weren't going to!"

I spared him only a brief glance before incanting my strongest Blasting Curse towards the cauldron at the ghost's feet. To my surprise, the spell simply fizzled out as closed in on the cauldron, so I tried the same thing on the coffins and the pedestals holding them up. Again, the spells did not hit their mark.

I let out a frustrated breath. "Magic dampeners around the cauldron and the pedestals?"

"Should've thought of that one for Fallon too," Jensen replied. He frowned as I shot a spell through him. Good to know I could still do that.

"Goblin-made," I noted, frowning. "Fancy wards, fancy dampeners to prevent some angry man with a wand from simply blowing shit up."

"We've been planning this for nearly a year, Mr Potter. Once the ritual is underway, there'll be no stopping it."

"No way to stop it, you say?" I grinned and fished out a bottle from my left robe pocket. A sickly purple substance swirled about inside of the bottle, kept from escaping by an oversized cork. "Whipped this up in about five minutes back home. Years of mishandled Potions lessons and a few war-taught recipes. The bottle's been charmed unbreakable as long as the cork stays in. I take it out, I smash it, and then this entire graveyard gets levelled. A magical explosive, sure, but it's still pure destructive force that your dampeners won't be able to stop. I think that'd probably stop the ritual, actually."

"So why haven't you, then?" Jensen asked.

"I feel like chatting for a bit first," I replied congenially. "Put one ghostly toe out of line and I'll smash this potion. Got a bit of a switch going on too." I shuffled the sleeve of my right arm down, showing Jensen my wand holster. "Set my wand holster a little differently today. I flick my wrist, and the mechanism hits a touch-activated Portkey I made. The explosive in my left hand will be exploding merrily by the time my Portkey gets me out of here."

"Clever."

"You haven't seen my third trick." I slipped the explosive into a little catch tied around my left wrist - easier access - and picked out another vial from my robe pocket. I showed it to him, grinning still. "Iron shavings. Keep a ghost bound for a full minute, which'd be long enough to start an exorcism."

"Pray tell, Mr Potter, if you have all of these fancy toys at your disposal, why not just get to the exploding and the exorcising?"

"Because, like I said, I want to chat. I have the time. You know some things about me and I'd like to know how to prevent any future... incidents like this one." With Fallon down for the count, Jensen was mostly harmless. If he tried to bolt, I'd stop him in his tracks with the iron. While my Portkey would take me out of here if needed, I wanted to take care of these two before even thinking about retreating.

"A chat..." Jensen rolled the words off of his tongue. "I'll ask a question, you answer, and then you'll ask a question and I'll answer, then? I'm awfully curious about some things myself, you know. But I have one stipulation."

"Shoot."

"I ask that the one question, the immediate question that you wish to have answered, be left to the end. I think you know which one."

I did. That one was "Why the hell do you need me out here tonight?" Instead of asking, I simply nodded, levelling my wand at him and not loosening my hold of the iron shavings in my left hand. A cool wind picked up, though I doubted it was an entirely natural one. Wild magic was dancing in the air tonight, and there was only a few minutes left until midnight struck.

"I bet this is quite the scoop for you, Mr Jensen," I started off. "Got bored with being a ghost for a century, then became a reporter when the first war ended, right? Or a little after. Couldn't do much even in your current state, 'cause you had yourself bound by the Ministry. I think I liked Rita's solution better, myself."

"Ah yes, Rita the beetle." He shuddered in an exaggerated matter. "I don't have your question, I'm afraid."

"I'm getting to it. Since we're putting off the question I really want to have answered, I'll start off easy. Why Fallon?"

"Pliable mind, easily bought, lacking morals, great magical power and skills to match... Need I go on or would you like to see his resume?"

"I don't need to, but I'll take that as your question. My next one: you covered your tracks well, Max. You had your goblin friend hide the paperwork and played up the rumours when it came to hiding the Marius knife. You probably weren't expecting somebody to check the goblin archives and not the ones the goblins let the wizards see, but that's fine. My question, though, is why did you make so many mistakes? The tenth victim was from Italy, and yet you had him buried here! Your eighth was the brother-in-law of a Ministry department head, and that definitely caught the Ministry's attention. Not so smart, really."

He smiled petulantly. "Regardless of who the eighth victim was, I had no intention of letting the Ministry catch on to my ritual. As for the tenth, he was deliberately chosen to attract _your _attention, Mr Potter, to here, tonight. Didn't exactly work, and I did need to send the notes, but he was supposed to be your first clue."

"First clue about what?"

"Ah. My turn for a question, Harry." I nodded and indicated for him to get on with it. "What is the nature of your relationship with Miss Tonks?"

"Fucking like bunnies." You cannot take the inner gossip out of a good reporter, I always say. "You said that you didn't think the Ministry would catch on about your ritual, so it was no matter that the eighth was Jason Cole's brother-in-law..."

"Sounds vaguely familiar."

I ignored the dry witticism. "The tenth was meant to be my clue, the Ministry weren't supposed to know about the ritual... and the knife was well hidden behind lies and missing paperwork." Oh that son of a bitch. I laughed. "You never knew. You never knew about my reality shift when you started. There was a different objective from the start. You're not a reporter who found out about my contract and wanted to stop it. You're a ghost. First and foremost, right now, you're a ghost who can't move on by himself, and you've already lived a century as one. You tired becoming a reporter to spice up your undead life, but that didn't work. So you had a desperate idea and wanted it to go off without a hitch. A rebirthing ritual."

Jensen said nothing. Before he was my blackmailer, he was a manipulator and the brains behind the Constellation Killer's handiwork. Before he was that, he was a journalist. A ghost before all of that. Before that, he was an arrogant pureblood who died too young - not even fifty years old. He had married into an old family with access to ritual knives and old books and everything he'd ever need.

The ritual was for him.

"Your note said that this was a ritual that would set things back to how they once were, and you were once alive," I deduced. "Making me think that you were going to unmake my contract was misdirection. A trick to get me here tonight. But you asked me to hold off on asking you why you wanted me here, and I will. So my question: how far did you go to hide the ritual? Where did it go wrong?"

Jensen narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. He still hadn't moved from his spot above the cauldron, perhaps worried I would blast him with iron shavings and destroy him before he could get his body back. "I have been a ghost for far too long, Mr Potter. Undergoing this ritual is my one chance to get my life back. I took the necessary steps in order to hide things, and the best way to hide things is to make them never exist in the first place."

Well how 'bout that.

"So I shifted reality," he said. "More specifically, I got Fallon to do it. He really is quite the bastion of power when we get down to it. We thought we were being so original too! But it turns out that we were taking a leaf out of Harry Potter's book. You shifted reality to hide things yourself, Mr Potter? Did you shift reality to win the war?"

I shook my head. "No, I shifted reality so I could move past it."

"How's that working out for you?"

Poorly, I thought. "It'd be great if I didn't have someone supposedly threatening my contract. A lot less stressful for all involved. Now right there you asked an extra question, so I believe I will too."

"By all means."

"You shifted reality to hide the two most important components of the ritual - to hide the files behind the Marius vault that would link you to the knife used to murder the victims, and to hide the zodiac signs, right? That's why you didn't care if the Ministry got on the investigation - your shift should've prevented them from seeing the signs."

"You are correct."

"But I saw through it." I remembered pretty clearly - I had indeed been the first one to spot the zodiac sign on Mr Lawrence, our ninth victim. "Your reality shift took away the collective perceptions of everybody looking at the bodies. To them, the twelve signs didn't exist, but I did see the one on the ninth victim. I didn't on the eighth - I was unravelling, you see. I was close to a contract renewal, and that happens every few months. But when I'm that close to a deadline, my perception of the reality around me is closer to how it was before I created the contract. I wouldn't see your reality shift because I wasn't part of your one."

"I had the same hypothesis."

"When I saw the ninth victim's Sagittarius mark, I broke the spell for everybody else, but only for the marks. I had the dominant hold over the current reality, and your own shift was leeching off of mine. I could perceive through yours when I wasn't unravelling, and if I willed everybody to see the marks, they would. Complete accident, but that's what happened."

"Not hearing the question."

"I'm not done rambling, Maxi," I said with a little grin. I felt oddly relieved that unmaking the contract wasn't Jensen's ultimate goal. But the fact that he knew, the fact that he had Fallon kill innocents, and so much more? My expression sobered. "You didn't just shift the files the goblins showed Dover, did you? The goblin files themselves were shifted away, but my friend Loki is special. Loki's a goblin, you see, and he was there when I shifted reality nearly three years ago. He can perceive through things like I could, and that's how he found the Marius will and those inventories you tried to hide, not to mention the records of Fallon's visit to the Marius vault to get the knife. So it seems you guys do have a goblin friend if you got these fancy dampeners, but he's ignorant to the Marius side of things."

"Too many with knowledge of our plans or identities is never a good thing," Jensen said wisely.

"Okay, here's my question. How and when did you realise I shifted reality?"

"When you were unravelling as you were investigating Mr Goren's death. I thought nothing of it at the time - you always had this taint of Dark Magic about you, no doubt a lingering trace left over from whatever You-Know-Who did to you."

"I was a Horcrux, but that's irrelevant right now."

"Indeed. But when the ninth body started up a chain of investigations into the previous eight victims and zodiac rituals, I pieced together that somebody must've seen through our shift. You, I realised, shifted reality, though in a different way to Mr Fallon and I did. I planned to catch you attention with the notes and the tenth victim for reasons we'll go into later."

"I guess we shall. I suppose you can ask me your next question now."

"Much obliged," he said acerbically. "This is about the nature of your reality shift, actually. My research indicated that there's always a big price for magic of this nature. I read an amusing anecdote about this wizard who shifted reality and made himself into a celebrity. He had power and wealth and women, but a demon was created to balance things back out. The demon went on a rampage before he could reverse the spell. So, what is your demon, Harry Potter?"

I tapped the side of my head with the business end of my wand. The balance for me was that I would feel the contract, feel the reality shift, as long as it was being maintained and anchored to me. I don't think it was really the contract's intent to allow me to simply block off and repress the guilt, but I could, and I called that lucky. Very damn lucky.

Jensen nodded. "Fallon's shift made a literal demon, I'm afraid. A nasty bugger that took quite a bit out of poor Fallon, but we have him nice and restrained."

Oh that was not good. Demons were bad. Demons were tough nuts to kill, and I'd never dealt with one before. "Where is it?" Okay, so I couldn't help the slight waver in my voice there.

Jensen hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at his crypt. "In there. Fallon and I have been so proud of the child he created. I named him Archimedes."

Now that was some fucked up shit. I listened hard for the first time, listened past the wind and my own steadily beating heart, and heard what sounded like muffled screams coming from inside of the crypt.

"He took Fallon's voice," Jensen said dispassionately. "So we locked him up tight and made sure to gag him. He's very loud for an unintelligible demonspawn."

I gaped at him. "Are you two nuts? You wanted to hide your ritual so badly that you had to keep that thing locked in there. Near _people_."

"We took the proper precautions, and Archimedes won't be a problem when we break the reality shift. Ours, I mean. Not yours."

I forced myself to look away from the crypt and block out the sounds coming from inside. Jensen was smiling a shark-toothed smile at me from his spot above the centre of the pentagram. I hadn't entered the circle yet myself. "I gather that you wish to ask some more questions, Mr Jensen?"

"Indeed! I'll let you go now, if you wish."

"Fine. You went to all the trouble to hide the zodiac brands and the knife, but why didn't you just keep the bodies for yourself? Seriously, that had to be a saner option than locking up a fucking demon in your crypt!"

Jensen scoffed, and for the first time tonight, I saw scorn in his expression, and it was directed at me. "Do you have no respect for the people you've killed, Mr Potter? These twelve poor souls-" he waved a hand at the coffins all around him, the zodiac signs still floating above them. "-for a cause I wish to respect. I gave their families closure by giving them the bodies. I did not let uncertainty destroy them! I am not so heartless that I would hide these sacrifices from those that love them!"

I snorted. "Respect? Nice one. So I imagine that if I hadn't have stumbled into the picture and found the zodiac signs, the families of Mrs Aquarius and Mr or Mrs Pisces would get their dead relatives back long enough for a funeral? And the families would bury 'em here at their own will, right? Forced into having a funeral held in this shithole with a demon nearby? You're all heart!"

"Oh yes, let the Boy-Who-Lived to shift reality take the moral high ground," Jensen said, his tone mocking.

"I didn't kill innocents, Jensen!"

"Twelve innocents, sure. Tell me, Harry, how many people have you killed to renew your contact since you started? How many people died so you could continually rape the minds of those around you?"

I barely needed to take a moment to count, but the answer was dripping in irony. "Twelve, my twelfth not even a few days back."

"Well how about that, then. And I bet that only half of them actually have families that know their loved ones are dead now."

I narrowed my eyes and almost exorcised him on the spot. "Okay, how about we talk about the fact that you tried to hurt my friends. I don't take lightly to my partner being cursed, my friend being sicked on me in his vulnerable state, and I especially dislike that you saw fit to remind my new girlfriend about her own crappy experiences with werewolves!"

Jensen glared. "I did no such thing. Your Auror Dover was cursed simply because he followed a lead and set off the short temper of a man with a loose wand. I simply erased the evidence. I did not start the rumours about the knife's current location and I did not feed them to your idiot partner."

"Fine, if you want to wash your hands of that. Are you going to deny sending Remus Lupin to come and kill me on the last full moon?"

He genuinely looked confused. "Lupin, eh? Didn't he die?"

I laughed hollowly. "Fine, if you want to play it that way..."

"Neither myself nor Fallon had anything to do with your attack on the full moon, Harry, I swear that. In fact, we were out hunting Mrs Farrow, our eleventh sacrifice, and Mr Randolph, the twelfth, that night. Fallon always said he did his best hunting on the full moon... Well, he always communicated it, I guess."

Suddenly, there was a strange hum in the air. The pentagram's bright green light turned a neon blue colour, and the zodiac signs started to crackle and waver statically, like a television with bad reception. Jensen crowed in triumph.

"Excellent!" he cried. "I believe it's now past midnight, and my rebirthing ritual is about ready to start!"

"Like hell it is!" I hissed, furiously attempting to destroy the coffin-toting pedestals around the circle, to no effect.

"Relax, Harry," Jensen said. The cauldron at his feet became enveloped in a light similarly coloured to the pentagram beneath it, and Jensen held out his left hand. The cauldron's contents began to boil and hiss. "The knife and the wand have been stripped of their unique materials and the other ingredients are at their boiling point... Oh, Harry... I can feel it. My remains, of course. Not much life left in them, but enough to make me whole again. I even added a little something to take twenty years off of me, you know!"

"So close!" I said fiercely. "So close and this is where I'll simply destroy this fucking graveyard, Jensen! Or..." I laughed. "Maybe I'll let you get your body back, and then I'll kill you. I'd bet anything you won't come back as a ghost the second time!"

He ignored me. "Soon... I will have my rebirth." The words were spoken lovingly, the cauldron at his feet hissing out a green flame in reply. It struck his foot, and he chuckled. "It tickles. I can feel it, and it tickles." He closed his eyes. "Mmm... if you want to ask me that one question, now's the time, Harry."

"Actually, I'm feeling kind of generous," I said, my teeth chattering at the cold power in the air. "You may want to know why I won't feel bad when I kill you! You may want to know why I won't give a good damn when I go home later! I will sleep very well tonight, Jensen!"

He laughed, a sudden burst of unnatural wind carrying the sound. I spared a glance at Fallon and saw that he had not moved from his spot, and was still unconscious despite the activity.

"You're getting better and better at giving the press what they want, my boy! How about you tell me why you shifted reality, then? Give me the uncensored version. Let me hear the righteousness in you tone, and let me hear you justify your sins to me, Harry Potter!"

"Okay..." I took a deep breath, taking all my pent-up frustrations with me. At the drop of a metaphorical hat, I let it all out. "Imagine if you will, Mr Jensen, that your whole life leads up to one moment. One moment where you're expected to kill or be killed. It's been a horrible life so far, with murder and torture and not much in the way of love. But there's always that ray of hope, and that is the fact that you might survive the war intact, that your friends might survive the war they need to survive, and they'll get the happy ending they deserve. You kill, but you're not killed. You survive and conquer, do some pretty horrible things along the way, but you still survive. Everyone can rebuild and persevere, and eventually, we'll all move on and live life.

"Doesn't happen that way though. You join up with the Aurors, even considering going full time as you get strung along, cleaning up the Ministry's mess for them. You do a damn good job and you think to yourself that it's finally over. That the pressure and the guilt will just go away and you'll live happily ever after. Doesn't happen. The pureblood menace, those that avoided prosecution or sat on the sidelines during the war, want their revenge. Our side must be held accountable for the horrors we committed to save the world from Voldemort, they cry! Kingsley Shacklebolt is Minister at the time, and despite negative rumblings, you convince yourself that he will make things all better. He's the Minister, of course, but he's also your friend and your war buddy!

"But, once again, it doesn't fucking happen. Kingsley decides to play by the rules to help him sleep better at night, even if that means destroying everything we worked hard for to win the war. I killed him, you know. I killed Kingsley because he couldn't be talked out of it. I respected him so much before he betrayed us, and it hurt to kill him, but I did it anyway. Not Neville or Ron or Tonks or Hermione. _I _killed him. It was my responsibility, with Dumbledore gone, to carry everyone through to the ending they deserved. Once I killed Kingsley, I had reached a point of no return, so I shifted reality.

"Here we are, years later." I gestured a hand at my surroundings. The wind had picked up and the glowing pentagram was humming softly. Jensen's transparent lines were becoming sharper and more pronounced. "I've got it all, don't I? A girlfriend, the normal work problems like an asshole boss and a lazy partner, and, in a couple of days, I'm going to enjoy a nice Christmas dinner with my friends. But I can't go on and live life to the fullest, can't leave behind the guilt and everything, until I get this thorn out of my side. The thorn's name is Maximillian Jensen. Have you heard of him?"

We were both silent for a moment. The unnatural wind carried the muffled screams from inside of Jensen's crypt. Jensen ignored them, digesting my words. Eventually, he tipped his head at me. "I'd lift a glass of scotch to you, my boy. You've hard a tough one, and this whole thing must be quite the ordeal-"

"Don't patronise me. Start explaining why you wanted me here tonight. I'm not needed, that much is evident. You could've gone about your night, got your body back, and avoided any unpleasantness."

"You may see this confrontation as avoidable, but I did not. I sent you the notes and the clues so I could give you something tonight. Something you've probably never had before." He paused. "A choice."

"A choice?"

"A choice," he said simply. "You had no choice in how you grew up as you did, you had no choice but to single-handedly win a war for your side, and you had no choice but to shift reality itself to protect your friends. By the time I realised that you were more that what I expected, I made a choice myself. You shifted reality, and that made you dangerous. In the two weeks between the ninth and tenth victims, I mulled it over. I could choose to take the rest of my work towards the grand rebirth away from prying and very investigative eyes, or I could appeal to you directly."

"Then you're an arrogant idiot," I said.

"Perhaps, but you're Harry Potter. I knew it was too late the moment you found the Sagittarius mark on Mr Lawrence. You saw the twelve signs, _you_ found the first ritual book and _you_ were on my trail. If I had successfully gotten my body back tonight without you being here, you still would've found me somehow. Maybe that is me overestimating your talents or maybe it's just that I don't want to look over my shoulder when I come back. I don't like uncertainty. If you would've found me out, you would have hunted me down and brought your swift justice upon me. I could not have that." He sighed. "I'd rather give you the choice, and that's why you're here. You can exorcise me right here on the spot. You can let the ritual be completed, and I could get my body back. If the latter happens, a second choice must be made. You can either kill me and frame poor Fallon, or you can let us go into the night. You can avoid another two deaths on your conscience and avoid spinning a new web of lies to those around you. This is an opportunity for everyone here tonight to get what they want, and nobody needs to know about your contract. You can even Obliviate the knowledge from our minds, if you wish."

The choice? Let them go or do what I came here to do. Either way, the end result would be the same - more guilt and more lies. We may both have a shaky moral ground, sure, but Jensen didn't know who he was fucking with. I do not let people run away. I will not abide by their killing spree because Jensen wanted his precious life back. I will not let anybody who knew about the contract walk away. Loki and I were the only ones to know and even then, Loki was very expendable.

"No deal," I said firmly, strongly, my voice not wavering, my posture straight and my eyes blazing with conviction.

"Ahh... yes." Jensen's lips quirked. "I suppose I know why then, don't I? Well, I took a gamble in the end."

"Twelve dead Muggles and two dead wizards, all for nothing."

His demeanour shifted. All traces of congenial ghost were gone, his eyes dark and his entire aura shifting to something dangerous and chilly. I've never pissed off a ghost that badly before. I never want to again.

"The ritual is almost complete," he said stiffly. "Two or three minutes. You wish for me to simply regain my body before killing me?"

"You want your life back that badly? I'll let you have it for ten glorious seconds," I spat.

"_Archie!" _he barked. In the distance, I heard a snapping noise.

"What did you do?" I demanded, my left hand already reaching for the iron shavings.

"I have no intention of dying again," Jensen said coldly, his eyes wild. "I had Fallon set up a voice commanded release rune on the shackles that held Archimedes in my old crypt."

I swore, hurling the iron shavings at him and intent on keeping him there. To my surprise, the shavings simply bounced off of him instead of immediately burning through his image and bounding him to the spot.

"Look at my feet, Harry Potter!" Jensen said excitedly, and I did. The cauldron beneath him had finally stopped bubbling, now glowing and humming with raw power. A stream of golden light reached out and touched each of the floating zodiac signs above their respective coffins. The green zodiac signs turned a dark colour, a wave of sickly green light travelling back up the golden stream and into the cauldron. There was a bright flash, and I shielded my eyes. When I opened them, golden tendrils of light were leaping their way up Jensen's form, and his feet suddenly gained colour. He was reconstituting from the bottom up.

"The ritual will take my remains and the flesh sacrifices of these poor Muggles and build my new body around this old imprint," Jensen chattered. "My body will reconstitute and then my heart will start!" The entirety of his feet were now tangible and very solid. I heard another snapping noise from Jensen's crypt. "You best take care of Archie, you know. He's kinda hungry."

I unhooked the explosive potion from the catch around my wrist. "That's it, I'm blowing this graveyard up!"

"No you will not," Jensen said triumphantly. "You cannot exorcise me right now, and stopping the ritual with your bomb will allow me to remain as a ghost. I will leave, Harry Potter, and the ritual will happen again somewhere. Twice, even. The first time, I'll get my body back! The second time, I'll unmake your contract and fix reality back to how it should be!" He laughed, a dark laugh that sent chills down my spine. "You think you can kill Archie in the minute it'll take in order for me to get my body back? While you're distracted, I'm going to get out of here!"

Okay, now I'm pissed. I heard a disturbingly loud, yet still muffled, roar from the crypt. Demon incoming. Jensen's legs were solid again. He'll be escaping while I deal with a freakin' demon. The odds were not stacked in my favour, and I couldn't leave the demon to get loose. No running...

I placed the magical explosive carefully on the grass. "Hey Jensen, you've got a good handle on my mental state now, but you haven't learnt the most important thing! I do not like it when people fucking run away!"

I aimed my wand and took my chance. "_Diffindo!"_

The spell was aimed high enough so that it wouldn't fizzle out as it approached the cauldron, and Jensen had barely a moment to register shock as both of his legs were severed off at the knee. The legs fell to the ground bloodlessly. He had said that the ritual was creating him a body using the current ghostly imprint, and it turned out my hunch was right - his missing limbs didn't turn back into ghost limbs or anything, and the ritual didn't reconstitute them back again. He hovered in the air, the top half of his chest and his head still transparent, but everything starting from the thigh up was solid. When his heart restarts and the ritual is complete, Maximillian Jensen would not be running away.

Bet the bastard didn't see that one coming.

"What have you-"

"Shut up! I have a demon to kill!"

I've never fought a demon before. The theory on them was mostly, you know, theoretical. But I shifted reality that one time, didn't I? Why couldn't I decapitate me a demon?

Demons have heads to decapitate, right?

I undid the latch of my Portkey/wand holster invention. I knew that I would probably trigger it accidentally if I was in the middle of a battle, and that was not part of the plan. I slipped the Portkey, a small button not unlike the ones Fallon attached to his victims, into my robe pocket. The explosive-in-a-bottle was safe where it was. I had my wand and my wits about me. Demon killing time.

I got my first glimpse of Archie the demon though, and my convicted wavered. From a distance and under a blanket of shadow, the thing could almost be mistaken for Fallon. It was a hodgepodge of mismatched colours, from pulsating blood reds to tawny brown, each colour seeping into the one beside them through what looked like black gelatinous vein-like lines. The demon had Fallon's hawkish features taken to a logical extreme, and had a sharp beak hanging over a wide frog-like mouth. Lines of razor teeth bit into the red ball-gag tied around its lower mouth, while the beak itself was held shut by what looked like barbed wire. Sharp purple ridges formed a protective shell on its right side, while the left looked closer to human skin and muscle in consistency, though not in colour. A pincer off its right forearm snapped into the air, and a sharp skewer replaced its entire left arm. Beady red eyes shone through the darkness, taking in the unconscious Fallon, the ritual site, the half-spectre in the centre of the pentagram, and me, wand raised and sweating just a little.

Now that is some fucked up shit.

I started strong, my most powerful Bludgeoning Curse aimed for the fleshier side of Archie's chest. It roared and deflected the spell with its pincer, the spell smashing into the roof of the crypt it had just escaped. Half of Jensen's name on the front of the crypt disappeared as the rest of the roof exploded, the demon simply staying put as stone rained on him. I tried a second Bludgeoning Curse, and although the demon couldn't deflect it in time, the force of the spell only threw him back a centimetre or so, a tiny dent appearing on one of its ridges. Not a good sign by any means...

I swept my arm in an arc, a jagged circular razorblade spitting out of my wand and towards Archie, aimed for its neck. Instead of moving out of the way or deflecting the blade, Archie simply ducked a little, the blade heading for its mouth. In a timed move, the demon's skewer arm batted the blade upwards, a thin cut striking the thing's cheek and severing the ball-gag in its mouth. The ball-gag dropped to the grass, and the demon's wide mouth started spitting out a viscous green spittle. Though the ball-gag remained unaffected, the grass surrounding it withered and died. Acid, of course. Great.

It roared a bone-chilling roar, one that carried in the wind. The lampposts helping to light up the graveyard exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. I heard the glass of something distant shatter, probably the closest Muggle home, and I was suddenly very thankful I had charmed my explosive potion to be unbreakable.

Its screams died down, soon replaced by the howls of the resident ghost in the vicinity, or, I corrected myself, the reborn human in the vicinity. As I had hoped, Jensen's legs had not reconstituted after I had severed them earlier, and the man now sat on the burnt grass - the pentagram surrounding him no longer illuminated - and just stared at his missing limbs. Welcome back, Mr Jensen. I hit him with a Stunning Spell, knocking him down like Fallon did minutes earlier. Focus now shifted to the demon heading my way.

The damn thing, free of both of its gags, was gnashing beak and teeth at me, a very bestial roar coming from its mouth and a sharp craw from its beak. Its legs, rather human-like excepting that one hoof its left leg ended with, rippled as it charged my way. I reflexively animated the nearest gravestones with a spell, sending them flying towards Archie in an attempt to slow him down. Yeah, it didn't work. It shrugged off the stone and my follow-up curses, taking a Blood-Boiling Curse, a Heat Haze Hex and a very powerful Concussion Curse like a champ. It kept on coming my way.

So I ran. Archie smashed through several gravestones as it darted across the wet grass after me with ease. I ran faster. A green glob of its acid spit sailed past my ear and made a nice hole where the undisturbed grass atop a Mr John Blackstone's grave lay. I kept running, eventually lengthening my stride to head up a steep hill and out of the immediate area. My new plan was to explode the potion from a distance and hope like all hell my new friend had the good grace to stay within the radius of the explosion as it went off. Of course, that plan went to shit the moment the damn thing started following me up the hill, only stumbling a little on its uneven legs and using its skewer arm as a crutch.

I reached the top of the hill first, stopped to take a breath, and tapped my wand at the ground. Archie was halfway up the hill, its skewer stuck in the wet dirt. Perfect. My Tremor Jinx shook the side of the hill heartily, a great mound of muddy dirty attacking Archie's legs and upsetting its balance. It tumbled awkwardly back down the hill, my jinx uprooting it each time it started to right itself. Eventually, it hit the bottom of the hill on its back, flailing about like a stunned turtle instead of a demon created by dark magic in the hands of a powerful amateur.

I blasted it while it was down, several of its larger ridges going flying due to my spellfire and the side of its face copping a severe case of Piercing-Curse-to-the-cheek-itis. I conjured a thick length of barbed wire and tied it around the demon's legs from a distance. It screamed as I tightened my hold, damn near garrotting its meaty legs then and there. Thick black blood spat out as the wire dug into its flesh. I was about to summon the potion, but the demon didn't give me the chance. Archie had apparently picked up a trick from yours truly, and started stabbing at the bottom of the hill, and it stabbed really damn hard. I felt a light tremor under my feet, and it was enough of a surprise that I tripped and started my own uncomfortable descent down the hill.

I heard another scream, and I noticed my path would head straight for Archie, who was snipping at the barbed wire with its pincer and holding the skewer straight out towards me. My tumble would end leg first, and I knew where that skewer would end up if I couldn't help it. I kept a tight hold of my wand and summoned a large gravestone my way - Mr Blackstone's, as it turned out. I carefully attached the thing to my feet and reinforced it into a sort-of magical shield. My new stylish surfboard jostled my descent something awful, and I winced as painful vibrations travelled up my body. Archie still held its skewer out, ready to intercept the gravestone heading for its face.

On second thought, this hadn't been my smartest idea.

Archie and his raised skewer rushed towards me, blasting through the left side of Blackstone's gravestone like a hot knife through butter. The skewer travelled up and nicked my inner left leg, starting from the ankle through my shoe and ending at the knee. I kicked out with the rock attached to my right foot, bouncing awkwardly off the demon's forearm and ejecting myself painfully off to the side, now at the bottom of the hill. I barely caught myself and shielded my chest from an incoming blob of acid, the demon using the distraction to bound forward and jump on top of me. Its pincer pinched at my stomach, _hard_.

I let out a cry as its face got close to mine, rolling my head furiously to avoid its dripping acid spittle. I chanced a glance into its eyes, shuddering and almost wetting myself at the look of victory in them. Its left arm skewer rose to impale me through one side of my chest and out the other horizontally, but I took action first. I remembered Remus's werewolf form on top of me just a few nights ago, snarling and preparing to end my life. Then, I had shoved my wand into its side and started blasting, but now I thankfully caught myself from shoving my wand into its hardened right side, instead stabbing at the softest part of its neck.

Like anything getting stabbed in the neck, it screeched and blood spilled out of the wound, a blackish ichor that felt incredibly weighty as it spilled down my front. I didn't hesitate in widening the hole by blasting it with my submerged wand, the beast on top of me wildly gyrating and trying to get free of my hold. But I held strong, pulling my wand free with a disgusting squelch noise and pushing the demon's weight off me with my legs and a Banishing Charm at the same time. I barely avoided having an acid hole burned into the side of my face as it flew off of me and hit the ground, a singular drop of the acid singing the side of my neck.

I discovered immediately that it's hard to keep a good demon down, its pincer claw lashing out and grasping my upper thigh, squeezing painfully. I rolled myself free of the vicegrip and recovered quicker than I ever had before. A blast of fire spun out of my wand, and I crafted it into an axe-like shape. I directed the fiery axe creation towards the demon, swinging it down and taking off its pincer arm at the shoulder. Archie, bleeding profusely from the neck and its legs still wrapped in barbed wire, couldn't stop me from chopping off the skewer arm either. Both shoulder wounds immediately cauterised over after the limbs were severed.

"Oh just fucking die!" I snapped, taking a few measured steps back. My head pounded from exhaustion as I dodged yet another ball of acid, my concentration breaking and the fire axe disappearing. Archie's constant gurgling cries from both beak and mouth were starting to grate, and I spat out a Piercing Curse. The spell drilled right between its eyes, and, after a bit of work on my part, it dug into its forehead, through its skull, and then out the other side. The demon shrieked at me some more, more black ichor leaking from its wounds. It may've been the Piercing Curse, it may've been the blood loss from both severed arms or the neck wound I'd ripped open until it was as wide as its mouth, but it finally stopped moving.

I let out a sigh of relief and walked away from the body, intent on finishing off Jensen and starting my frame job on Fallon. It'd be easy enough. Trust me, there were harder things to do in shorter timeframes, and I had done them before. This one time, I burned down several floors of the Ministry, made myself an alibi to avoid getting caught as the arsonist, and consequently Imperius Curse'd the inspectors to make it all look like a big accident. That was difficult. This'd be easy.

I approached the ritual site, taking in the fact the graveyard was now very dark and blissfully quiet. The innocuous magical explosive in a bottle still lay in the grass where I left it, and I scooped it up. First things first, I'd need to find the ward stone, wherever it was hidden. Destroying the wards meant that the Ministry could be alerted to the high concentration of magical energy in the area that would no doubt show up when I made a crater out of St Michael's. Disrespectful to the folks buried here, sure, but Jensen had brought them into this, not me.

I was about to step around one of the twelve stone pedestals when a great glob of acid landed on the polished mahogany coffin held up by the pedestal on my right. The wood melted right through, and I caught a glimpse of the handsome-looking corpse of a man who probably had not been dead all that long. Mr Rudolph, the twelfth, I presumed. The acid dripped off of the coffin and onto Rudolph's face, immediately setting about eating at his decomposing nose. I turned away from the sight. That fucking demon, I swear...

It was crawling my way, snapping and snarling still. The wounds on its head and neck had disappeared, but it still had the barbed wire digging into its legs (leg and hoof - whatever), and was using the stumps of its arms to propel itself forward. Can't keep a good demon down. Even though he was stupid enough to be manipulated by Jensen of all people, I felt my respect for Fallon rise. How the hell did that guy manage to restrain this thing in the first place?

I didn't let the demon get far. I hobbled on my injured leg and flicked my wand, more than a dozen conjured darts and arrows meeting Archie's gnarled face and turning him into a rough approximation of a pincushion. More than half of the projectiles went all the way through, too. One particularly sharp arrow had lodged itself in Archie's eye, and I set it on fire, starting a chain reaction with the other wooden projectiles and erupting the demon's entire top half in flame. It screamed and thrashed and shrieked and gnashed about for a painful few moments, eventually becoming still once more, its fiery head resting on the grass. Tiny embers started to light the grass around the body, and I turned away.

Okay, where was I?

The ward stone would have to be nearby. Somewhere on Fallon's person would make sense-

I heard a familiar roar.

"Oh what the fuck," I muttered, glancing back at the demon. It hadn't moved far from where I left it, and its head was still on fucking fire, a bizarre torch lighting up the area. I carefully circled around it and conjured a very sharp metal javelin, holding it above me in my left hand, poised to strike. Archie screeched one last time before I impaled it through the back of the head, pushing the spear straight through and into the ground. I dug it in deep, twisted it a little, and let the flames travel up the spear. But still, in a feat I will definitely add to my list of things that shouldn't just fucking happen (Right up there with a drunken Romilda Vane sleeping with Ron hours after she'd seduced me), it kept twitching.

Okay, so it was impossible to keep a good demon down. I briefly considered leaving it here and consulting a book on the subject of demon killing, but I was tired and my body ached. My leg was still bleeding, so I bound it in makeshift bandages to prevent, you know, death by blood loss.

I heard a low moan behind me - Fallon was stirring.

Fallon. The man who had created this demon through a reality shift that was different yet similar to my own contract. Archie's resemblance to Fallon told me one thing - Fallon's shift, like my own, was tied to him being alive.

I was working on getting around my own possible death destroying my contract, but poor Fallon wouldn't get a chance. I didn't let him stand - before he could open his mouth and say nothing in protest, I simply exploded his head like a watermelon, bits of his brain raining all over the place and leaving a fleshy stump where his neck used to be. Poor Fallon nothing. That man had killed twelve Muggles for Jensen and some gold, and he'd get no sympathy from me. He should've just refused the money when he had the chance, the twat.

There was a sound not unlike a large vase being smashed against a tiled floor, and a flash of reddish lightning flared up in the sky. I strolled a pace away from the still alight and twitching demon, watching as a gust of wind suddenly swept up and overtook it. A reddish hue filled my senses. I hadn't detected Fallon's reality shift being created all those months ago, but it had latched onto mine and birthed Archie out of a mix of Fallon's power and my own. My reality shift was the dominant one, and I only started to subconsciously realise Fallon's was there after seeing the Sagittarius mark on the ninth victim's body and then breaking the shift's hold over everybody else. I'd bet anything the increased feelings of pressure I had felt for a week after finding the sign was a side effect, my own reality shift catching on to the leech's presence and my contract warning me in its own twisted way.

The magical wind swept away from Archie's now thankfully still form, and the next gust simply took the demon with it, a flood of ash joining the breeze and heading out into the cold night. One more thing to take care of then.

I went over and slapped Jensen's cheeks with my wand, scorching them. I didn't care - my own cheek barely avoided some fucking demon acid. He'd live. Okay, maybe not.

"Jensen!"

His eyes fluttered open. "I'm alive," were his first words, said with such reverence and a great relief that I almost flinched. He took in a deep breath, ignoring the fact I was hovering over him with a dangerous smile on my face.

"Hiya Maxi," I said. "Ten seconds, as promised."

He chuckled ruefully. "I don't suppose there's anything left to say, is there?"

I cast a glance to where I had severed his legs off. "I hope it's all it cracked up to be, Max. Less of an imprint left behind because you couldn't move on. More alive now. Pain must feel... odd, huh?"

"Odd and very refreshing," he said. "You look pained yourself."

I shrugged. Unless Archie's skewer was laced with some kind of poison, the cut on my leg would be easily healed, same with the burn mark on the side of my neck and the pincer-shaped marks on my stomach and thigh. I'd be fine. I told Jensen as much, and he chuckled again.

"I hope you can live with yourself, Harry Potter."

"I can and I will," I said, nodding. "I will go home and maybe catch some sleep with my girlfriend wrapped around me. I don't have nightmares anymore, Mr Jensen. The contract - I shifted reality and it's leaked into me, you see. If I concentrate, I can block it all out. No guilt, no pressure, no nightmares."

I expected a look of scorn or jealously, but Jensen simply frowned. "Your contract... it messes with your mind?"

"In a good way, of course."

Jensen shook his head. "No, you don't understand. You simply block it out? No challenge from your conscience or anything? Just push everything to the back of your mind?"

I nodded, and my mouth twitched into a frown.

"And you can forget it all. Forget that you should be more cautious, be more wary, and the fact that you need the guilt to remain sharp and remember why you keep fighting."

"I know why I keep renewing the contract, Max. It's my only choice."

"Only choice," he breathed exasperatedly. "Boy, listen to me! It's deliberate. The contract is bound to your will, and it's an incredibly strong piece of magic. Fallon could barely reign in Archie, and he only shifted reality months ago. You've had years! The contract has affected you. It's made you reckless and it's messing up things that shouldn't..." He paused, muttering to himself. "Because it's trying to kill you."

I balked. "Sure it is."

"Listen!" Jensen snapped. "It doesn't want to be bound. It doesn't want to be a slave to your will, and it keeps you complacent. Normally, it will let you block off the very things that'll keep you alive. But when you're unravelling, close to a renewal, something feels different, right? Maybe you have a little less luck?"

I thought about it, but only for a second. That I forgot the Silencing Spell when I went to take down Selwyn... My perpetual bad luck in the fight against Remus... Both had been closer to a renewal deadline than anything else I'd dealt with lately.

Jensen's eyes lit up. "See! Harry, you-"

I held up a hand, my head pounding. "Don't try and delay things, Jensen. I'm sorry, but it has to end this way."

He sighed, studying my face with piercing eyes. It was the last thing he'd ever see after all, and he couldn't help looking curious, I bet. Seeing and understanding something, all within the extra second I kept him alive. For him, it probably felt like years.

"What happens if you can't renew your contract in time?" Jensen asked. "What happens if your lies catch up to you, or somebody senses the reality shift like I did? What happens if you die?"

I placed my wand against his temple, and he shuddered at the touch.

"Harry Potter, what happens if your luck just runs out?"

"I'm sorry it has to end this way, Mr Jensen," I said lightly, my eyes no doubt betraying the put-upon tone.

As if he had reached a final decision, Jensen stopped talking and started breathing in his last lungfuls of cold air. He looked at me. "You're quite remarkable, you know. It's a shame I never got to have my exclusive interview..."

My wand-tip lit up a sickly green colour.

"Make it painless then, Mr Potter. I think it's time I moved on... Been a while since I saw my Roma..."

He closed his eyes and I fulfilled his final request.

..::..-.-..::..

_January 13th, 1999: Changed_

I hadn't slept. I couldn't even fathom sleeping at the moment. My mind was racing and my curiosity was peaked at a morbid level. It was like I was playing God or something, walking in the Atrium among the crowds of the Ministry and observing my new reality - my creation born of blood and pressure.

In fact, I hadn't visited the Ministry since I killed Kingsley and burned a few floors down to cover my tracks. I hadn't wanted to show up in this building while that tosser with the fez whose name I hadn't deigned to learn was in charge, continuing his campaign against our side. I was too busy researching the reality shift and creating the contract, constantly adding new ideas and little notations on stray bits of parchment in my study in Grimmauld Place. Something of this enormity had to be perfect - I couldn't shift reality a second time nor add to the current contract, and even if I could, I'm not sure I'd get lucky and survive the ritual a second time. Call it a hunch.

I couldn't have my fiery death yet. Or at all. I wouldn't be sleeping until I had double-checked every shrub in wizarding Britain was perceiving things differently and not remembering things some might call 'incriminating'. The Ministry was the best place to start.

People nodded to me politely as they passed - I was still a big enough celebrity in these parts, and now that no one could remember that they were supposed to prosecuting me, I received no looks of suspicion or distrust. For once, my fame was helping out immensely. A happy ending was just around the corner. I could feel it.

I bumped into Neville in one of the service lifts. "Neville? What are you doing here?" He looked pale and gaunt. While before he was in a Ministry holding cell and awaiting a rigged trial, he was now just recovering from a vicious virus that kept him home in bed for the last few weeks. At least he looked the part.

"I was just here to do some Wizengamot business, you know. Since Gran's accident, they'll need a new Longbottom in the chamber..."

I grinned. "But since you're Neville freakin' Longbottom, you'd rather be back at Hogwarts with your plants?"

He nodded happily. "Right! I'm signing my seat over without fuss, but I have the option to get it back a few years down the track. Don't think I will though."

"Smart lad. Politics." I made a face to emphasise the point. He laughed, and I used the distraction to brush his mind with Legilimency. It was perfect. My sense of satisfaction swelled - Neville didn't remember burning those people alive at Bulstrode Abode, he didn't remember flaying the Carrows and starting up the Battle of Hogwarts, nor did he remember accidentally killing Lestrange in a torture session gone sour. He didn't remember being arrested first as a message to me. Not only that, but the Legilimency probe couldn't detect any visible sign of tampering within his head. The shift was working.

"... Heading to lunch at the Leaky Cauldron later," Neville was saying. "Care to join?"

"And interrupt you chatting up Hannah Abbott?" It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I always knew those two had had an awkward teen crush on each other a few years back. Maybe I could help along the happy endings, eh?

Neville turned a brilliant shade of red and started to splutter, so I rescued him.

"Listen, just be yourself. Talk plants and talk about her work. Ask her out if you feel confident. I think you can handle it." He's Neville freakin' Longbottom. Tampered memories or not, he'd man up. "Anyway, I gotta be somewhere, though if I do swing by the Leaky for lunch, I'll find a way to help you out. Deal?"

He hummed. "Deal."

We shook on it as the lift stopped at Level 2, and I hopped off and made a beeline to the Auror Office. My little desk sat in a lonely corner next to Terry Boot's, and it had accumulated a little stack of mail in my absence, including a backlog of the last week's set of the _Daily Prophet_. I checked them over. The news was mundane - no witch hunts against our side or anything of interest. I settled in my desk and started in on some paperwork, as if I had never left after Kingsley had Neville arrested.

A couple of hours later and I was back in the Atrium again. Scuttlebutt had spread over the morning about Dirk Cresswell's new permanent position as Minister after Kingsley's accident. The guy with the fez? Shifted him out of the job and the history books as a Minister. Sorry, guy, but I'd rather have Cresswell in the top job. He's fair, he's Muggleborn, and most importantly, he wouldn't buckle to pureblood pressure. I would've said the same about Kingsley once, but circumstances were different then. I shifted reality, remember? I think that entitled Cresswell for a free ride to the top, and the purebloods themselves had suddenly forgotten that they wanted to prosecute me and my friends.

My stomach dropped a bit as I spotted a mane of mousy hair in the crowd. Mousy hair, most of the time, meant Tonks. My joy over the successful reality shift lessened some as I realised there were wounds that the contract couldn't heal. I couldn't bring back Tonks's parents and I didn't even think Remus to be alive and able to be shifted back home where he belongs.

I pushed my way across the crowd and reached her, noticing the dazed and somewhat lost look on her face. Tonks was a brilliant girl when she wanted to be - a firecracker mix of easy humour, dynamite good looks and an ever-changing roster of hair that brightened any dull day. She was in one of her more depressing moods today, and although I felt the need to keep looking around for more signs of my successful reality shift, I felt the want to go to her. She was like me - no parents, good friends dead or missing during the war - except for one thing: she didn't grow up like I did, and she had felt years of love and happiness. To have it all torn away so cruelly by the war? No better than my sob story, that's for sure.

She looked like she needed a good friend, and I was that friend.

"Wotcher Tonks," I said cheerily.

"Wotcher Harry," she returned half-heartedly. I deflated a bit on the inside, but my resolve didn't waver.

"I'm heading to lunch," I said, subtlety absent.

She cocked an eyebrow at me. "That's great, Harry."

"And then I have the rest of the day to do one thing. Can you guess what it is?" She didn't immediately answer, so I elaborated. "I'm going to take my dear friend Tonks out for the day, against her will if I have to, and we're going to have fun."

Sounded simple in my head, but I think it may've come out a little callous. I'll have to work on that.

She didn't immediately grasp my line of thought. "Huh?" See?

"I'm a bastard," I admitted. "Haven't really been there lately. Holiday seasons and all that. But I realised that I have a very good friend that I haven't caught up with much lately."

"And you're going to take me out, by force if necessary?" There was a teasing lit in her tone that felt warm and familiar.

"I know I'm not a fully-fledged Auror yet, and thank God given the amount of paperwork the others do, but I know some spells. Spells that can, you know, restrain you, drag you along..."

"Drag me along?"

I nodded. She looked a little more cheery, and didn't object when I grabbed her by the hand and led her to the nearest Floo exit. There were a few people ahead of us in a line, and I held her hand tightly.

"See?" I said with a smile. "If those fireplaces can fit wizards the size of Robards, they can fit the two of us. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

She grinned. "Lunch first?"

"We're going to the Leaky. Lunch and a show - I've kinda maybe pushed Neville into trying to ask Hannah Abbott out. It'll be... interesting to watch, I'm sure."

She looked ready to laugh at my enthusiasm for meddling in Neville's affairs, her hair unconsciously gaining some its lustre back. Whatever comment I was about to make next was interrupted by a polite cough to our side.

I was in too good a mood to even snap at the guy. Well, he was a ghost, actually. Pureblood-looking type, dressed old-fashionedly, probably mid-1800's. However, given how backwards the wizarding world appeared at times, it wouldn't have surprised me if this man died yesterday.

"Can I help you?" I asked politely.

The ghost shot me a predatory grin, one I'd seen before. "Mr Potter, I presume?"

"Yeah. I'd shake your hand, but..."

He waved it off with an easy chuckle. "No need. I'm Maximillian Jensen from the _Daily Prophet. _I was wondering if you'd like to make an on-the-record comment about Minister Cresswell's ascension to power?"

Reporter? A ghost reporter at that? Now I'd seen everything. But I was feeling boisterous and cheery today, probably helped by the lack of sleep.

"Sure. I'd like to point out that, before I say anything, misquoting me will end badly. Tonks, remember what happened to the last guy?"

She, completely straight-faced, made a snipping motion with one hand towards one of her waggling fingers on the other. Jensen, being a guy first and foremost, no doubt caught the threat. Joke. Either or...

The ghost chuckled again. "If anybody could figure out a way to castrate a ghost, it'd be the remarkable Harry Potter."

"Stop, I'm blushing. Okay, here's my quote: Minister Cresswell has the potential to do a lot of good, and I'm hoping he has a successful tenure as Minister for Magic. The world needs stability right now, Mr Jensen. I think Cresswell might be our guy, but actions speak louder than words."

Jensen nodded along, digesting my words.

"Maybe I should write it down?" I suggested.

"No need, perfect memory recall. But I should put the feelers out for a new scribe... Is that all, Mr Potter?"

"Sure. Also, if you play me fair in your article, I may even give you an exclusive interview in the near future."

The ghost's smile looked genuine, and he waved a hand. "Another time then, Mr Potter. Enjoy your day."

"You as well." With that, he was gone. I turned to Tonks. "Journalists? Can't even get rid of them by killing them these days."

She giggled. Sometime during my conversation with Jensen, her hair had shifted into a brilliant lavender colour and kept long, rolling down to her shoulders in a way I quite liked. My hand caught hers again, and we headed to the Floo together.

Today, everything had changed. For the better, I knew. I had shifted the big problems away, and now it was time to be there for my friends and deal with the little problems in life. The war was over. Time to leave it all behind.

..::..-.-..::..

_Three Days After Maximillian Jensen's Second Death: I'm Sorry_

The war hadn't left the cemetery out at Godric's Hollow any less empty. It was a precious commodity to be buried here, among the Petrells and the Potters and even a few Dumbledores. I wound a familiar path through the snow, juggling the flowers I held in my arms. As usual, I had charmed them to survive the harsh environment the middle of winter brought on, ensuring their survival for a few days longer than normal flowers would. It was the best I could do, and the child inside of me hoped they'd appreciate the gift.

Two gravestones, side by side, were my destination. Somebody else had left flowers for James and Lily Potter before I could, but I didn't mind. They deserved to be honoured just as much as anyone else in this graveyard, and a brief glance at the rest of the sea of headstones showed similar flowers nestled at every grave. Some kind soul had left them, just like last year and the year before.

Beside the graves of James and Lily lay two golden plaques, both commemorating the death of two men whose bodies had never been found. Sirius Black, my godfather, and Remus Lupin, who I had killed personally. This year, I spent less time at my parents' graves and more time in front of Lupin's plaque. I hadn't ever paid much attention to it - it was a sad thing half-buried in the snow, and I had known he was alive since the plaque had been placed there. But now...

"Sorry, Remus," I muttered. Sorry I killed him. Sorry I drove him to spending his final hours unleashed as a werewolf.

Jensen and Fallon hadn't been responsible. Remus Lupin's rampage just over a week ago had not been a warning to me. A broken man's desperation brought on by our last meeting led to the stronger half of Remus Lupin's mind gaining control. I couldn't put a name to my attitude towards Remus. Maybe it was selfishness or maybe it was just pure disgust at Remus Lupin running away all those years ago.

I had visited Remus's abandoned cottage just yesterday. I found the door swinging in the wind. The Wolfsbane I had brought him was still where I had left it, in the grass and unopened. He had not broken out of the chains usually keeping him locked up each month. He hadn't even locked himself up in the first place. Standing there in the small chamber I'd fashioned to lock him up in each month, I pieced it all together. Remus Lupin had been fighting the werewolf side of his nature all of his life. Greyback, meanwhile, had embraced his. When Remus joined up with Greyback, he was forced into accepting the wolf. Remus spent years fighting it off when he took up seclusion in that cottage. One missed dose of Wolfsbane close to a full moon would be catastrophic for his mental state.

So he deliberately didn't take any Wolfsbane that night. The rage he had been feeling over everything about me probably gnawed at him. The wolf must've taken control of his mind before the transformation. Remus had Apparated into the city, transformed, and sniffed me out at Tonks's flat.

Upon understanding the full picture, I stewed in guilt for a while. The contract may've let me block things out, but this guilt was vivid and it had nothing to do with the contract. Yet, I still went back to Tonks, enjoyed the night and was very blissfully aware of her thousand-watt smile, one I hadn't ever thought I'd see again after her parents died. Remus losing control wasn't going to make me give her up or anything like that. Instead, I was going to try my hardest to not repeat one of Remus's greatest mistakes.

"I'm sorry," I said again. Something warm stung my eyes, but I turned away from the plaque bearing Remus's date of birth and a date of supposed death that was years off. I think I'll forever wish he had been part of the body count along with the rest of Greyback's crew, massacred by vengeful Irish wizards. At least then I wouldn't close my eyes and remeberer a werewolf on top of me, its amber eyes widening in shock as I tore it in half with my wand.

I could boast all I'd like about blocking things out thanks to the bleed-through effect, but some things would stick with me for a long time. This was one of them.

..::..-.-..::..

After lunch and my annual visit to Godric's Hollow, I headed to the office. I rounded up a few bits of stray paperwork to take home for the night, and was about to head out via the stairwell when I heard Robards's office's door slam shut.

The man himself lumbered out, carrying a large cardboard box under each arm. His eyes were bloodshot and his general demeanour disgruntled, and his expression soured as he spotted me. Instead of cursing at me or changing his path, he shuffled one of the boxes out from under his arm and pushed it into my hands.

"I'm taking the stairs," he grunted. "Carry that."

I nodded as we headed out, half the office watching us leave without killing each other. I'd bet anything that somebody would be calling for Healers to meet us at the Atrium. I had no intention of fighting or anything, too drained from the morning's events. Evidently not wanting to fight either, Robards started talking pleasantly.

"Plans for Christmas, Potter?" he asked.

I nodded. "Lunch and dinner with some friends. You?"

"Tropical Christmas," he replied. "My new assignment."

"It'll be a shame to lose you, sir. I'm sorry."

He snorted. "Cut the bullshit, Potter. You're glad I'm getting shafted. You hate me and I hate you. Williamson and Cresswell, meanwhile, hate me more than they hate you. They slap you with a week of anger management and reassign me to the ass-end of Brazil to play negotiator to the goblins now that they've stopped eating the other ambassadors. Our illustrious rewards for taking care of the Constellation Killer case."

"They slapped me with a month, and you did nothing to help the case," I corrected. "Besides, you get your own private beach and a little cabin all to yourself. Good thing too. You could use a tan."

"Funny," he said, though his tone conveyed anything but. "Friendly word of warning though, while we're talking all nice-like."

"All ears, sir."

"Watch your fucking back, Harry Potter. You may effortlessly float through things like reviews and politics, but you know just as I do how much everybody is playing everybody in that office."

"Except me, you mean."

"Bullshit," Robards said. "You're just one of those sneaky bastards who tells the world he's not playing them, but he is. You know how I know that?"

I shook my head.

"Because a few days ago Ravenwood came to chat to me. She and her partner were doing a patrol or something back on the sixteenth, and guess what they found."

I didn't, and he answered anyway. "Three bodies. Muggle teenagers out on the town. Ripped to fucking shreds. They could only be identified by their drivers licences, their faces torn the fuck off and scattered across the alleyway they were found in."

Again, I said nothing.

"Werewolf attack, it turned out. Audrey hedged and she hedged, but she eventually told me a thrilling tale of how a werewolf huffed and puffed down Harry Potter's door, and how he eviscerated the thing after hurling himself out of a window from the fourth floor."

"I'm surprised she talked."

Robards nodded. "I wasn't. Audrey's fair. She'll make a damn fine Head Auror now that I'm gone, a latter day Amelia Bones. She'll do what she has to in order for justice to be played out."

I frowned. "So she told you that I told her and Rachel to cover it all up. To ignore the fact that we'd have an incident on our hands with Talbot's people. She told you everything."

The former Head Auror grinned a wide and unfriendly grin. "Oh how 'bout that. I was tickled pink at the idea. Harry Potter politicking his way out of a situation. Perhaps he was deflecting the fact he's plowing that Metamorph slag, or maybe he's trying to downplay the fact the werewolf was out to get him. Keeping secrets, Potter?"

I dropped the box I was carrying, letting the contents spill out on the stairs. "I think this is my floor, actually. Anything else before you go off and play goblin ambassador for the rest of your life?"

He fished his stubby little wand out of his pocket and levitated the fallen box off the ground. "Watch your back. Audrey and you may be chummy now, but she's a shark, just like you. Say what you will about me being in charge, but at least you were sure you could handle me, am I right?"

My glare told him everything he needed to know.

"Stew on that one for a while, Potter," Gawain Robards said roughly. He turned away and headed down the stairs. "Happy fucking Christmas!"

And like that, he was gone. I was now left with a potential problem in the form of Audrey Ravenwood watching my every move in my work hours. I gave Robards a head start before heading down the stairs myself, mulling over his parting words. I knew that I might need to heed his warning sometime in the future, but for now? I had another meeting to go to, one that would surely end badly for one particular party.

..::..-.-..::..

Loki was waiting for me at our regular meet-up spot at Gringotts, his arms crossed and his expression not unlike he had swallowed something unpleasant. "Well?"

"Nice to see you too, Loki," I snapped, flicking my wand. The door behind us shut tight and I created a little alarm ward to warn me if any goblins were approaching. "We need to chat."

"I told you that I've already taken care of the files you asked me to make disappear. Are you really so paranoid-"

I silenced him with a hand. "There's one more loose end, Loki. About the Constellation Killer case."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Something coincidental, a little too coincidental to be overlooked. Let's just say that I've underestimated you, and trust me when I say that is a compliment, Loki." I narrowed my eyes at him. He was projecting aloofness and was schooling his features in a careful and very guarded way I hadn't seen before. "The ingredients for the rebirthing ritual were rare finds. The goblin-made magic dampeners and the wards around St Michael's were good stuff. One of the wards specifically looked a lot like one we used years ago when I shifted reality. To hide the surge of power from the Ministry."

"Jensen must've had a goblin accomplice then. I wonder who it could be?"

"Cut the bullshit, Loki," I snapped. "He shifted reality to hide the goblin files, but Fallon must've been in contact with someone in order to purchase those sensitive ingredients. I did some digging." I threw a rolled up piece of parchment at him. "Got that from Fallon's flat. Your handwriting on it. I explored a few hunches and found out that you're one of the lesser goblins usually assigned to manage the vaults nobody really touches these days. Like the Marius vault. And, say, eight months or so ago, you took Fallon into the vault and watched as he pulled out a ritual knife and some gold. And you put on an act, the salesman who could help Fallon get what he needed for a ritual."

"My activities outside of our business are none of your concern-"

"None of my fucking concern?" I hissed. "You fucking knew! You knew they planned out a rebirthing ritual, and that twelve Muggles would die. From the start! You gathered the ingredients for the ritual! You were helpful little goblin guy to them as well. And people died. Innocents got hurt."

"So?" he said coolly.

"Worst of all, you knew all along and stonewalled me. When I brought you Lavender's book and told you to find some information about this ritual, you hummed your way over the next few weeks, telling me that you were busy with the goblin rebellion in South America. But when I told you that the contract was being threatened, it took you all of three days to magically find the inventories and the Marius will. Why then? Because you were worried. If my contract was breached, you would be one of the first to die. You didn't want that, and you played up the pathetic little Loki card! Do you understand what this means for you?"

He sneered. "You'll kill me."

"So help me if you ever consciously hold things back like that ever again, I will. I will come here, hunt you down, and then mount your head on my bedroom wall!"

My last words echoed throughout the small office. Loki just stood, still as an ice sculpture and his expression just as cold. I disliked being tricked. Little Loki with no backbone and a curiosity about things was a lie. He was a shark and a trickster. Maybe his name should've tipped me off - he was dangerous.

And the look on his face told me he would continue to have business dealings that didn't involve me, even if more people died. He wouldn't work just at my behest or gold. He'd do what would be best for Loki. He had finally crossed that line in my eyes, and he was officially expendable.

"I'm sorry, Loki."

I snapped my wand in his direction and blasted off a Killing Curse at his chest. However, I did not expect the spell to go _through_ him and make a small crater in the wall, bits of stone exploding outwards and similarly sailing harmlessly through my intended target. I swore as a bit of flying debris hit my leg. Loki hadn't moved. I gaped at him, and he smirked victoriously.

"Astral projection spell," he said. "I guessed you would be a little angry if you found out my involvement. I expected it, actually."

"You're a dead goblin, Loki," I spat. "You're dead, but you just don't know it yet."

He hummed at me. "Sure. Let me tell you how things are going to go. In my business, attempted murders are expected. Someone tries it more than once, and I get angry. But I know you're a loose cannon, and let's just say you've been good to me in the past. You've tried to kill me once, and that I will remember. Try it again, and I will actively start trying to undo the mental hold you have over me. I will break your reality shift and burn the contract in front of your eyes. I will live and laugh, while you will no doubt suffer and maybe even die."

Loki's projection started to waver and hiss. "Time's up. I'm willing to continue our business, of course. Though you'll have to forgive me if we can't do it in person anymore. Who's next on your list come renewal time?"

"Jack Larson," I bit out.

He nodded. "Good to know. Send me a note when the time comes, and I'll take... double my standard fee from his vault." The projection bowed, smiling mockingly. "Good to do business with you, Harry Potter. Have a nice holiday."

The projection hissed once more, and a blue flash of light signalled Loki's exit. I just stood there for a moment, trying to logically figure out a way to track him down and make sure he'd never betray me again. Logic fell out in favour of emotion, anger bursting forth. I thought about Remus, about Robards and about Loki. Three minor elements in my life haunting me now - covering up Remus's death and ousting Robards as Head Auror has saddled me with a new challenge at work with Ravenwood in charge. Underestimating Loki about matters of trust had bit me in the ass, and although he hadn't in so many words betrayed my contract, it still angered me that he could one day screw me over.

These were problems that needed to be rectified. Problems for the future with no immediate solutions.

I just hoped I could find a reasonable solution before I lost everything.

..::..-.-..::..

_Christmas, 2001: Moving On and Living Life_

"Not even close," I said, scrunching up my nose. "There's festive cheer, and then there's a monstrosity of multicoloured hair."

"You don't like it?" Tonks said indignantly, the offending hairstyle in question near blinding me.

"Well there's a line into tacky-land, and the red and green? Crossing it?"

"Hey!" She caught herself from looked angry at my response, instead smiling a little. "This is one of those things where you poke fun at my hair so I wear it more often to get a rise out of you, isn't it?"

"Sure sure. Whatever delusions you want to have..."

"You're not just saying this 'cause you secretly like it and want me to do it more often, are you?" My face must've twitched the wrong way, because she crowed in triumph. "I knew it!"

Well it didn't look that bad, but I tried to keep feigning disinterest. "Whatever you say dear."

She made a face. "Please don't call me 'dear'."

"Sure thing mistress," I said teasingly.

"Oooh... I quite like _that_," she purred, eyes sparkling. I was regretting that comment now. "Call me Mistress Dora, Harry. Oh yes..."

My girlfriend the multicoloured gallery of surprises, ladies and gentlemen.

"Dover!" I shouted out, pounding the door to his flat with one hand and half-heartedly fending off Tonks's wandering hands with the other. "Help! There's a crazy Christmas-themed witch trying to kill me!"

The door wretched open, revealing Dover, dressed casually and all the world his usual rumpled and unshaven self. He grinned at the two of us, my arm now wrapped around Tonks and her fingers lazily poking at my side.

"Never pegged you for the type to complain, Harry," he drawled.

"You're hysterical," I said dryly, shoving a wrapped box into his arms. "Merry fucking Christmas, Mac."

"Happy Christmas!" Tonks chirped.

Dover tore into his present, his eyes widening as the paper came off. "Odgen's Finest Firewhiskey circa 1845?"

"The whole office chipped in," I said, somewhat afraid my friend would burst into awkward tears. It was just alcohol... "Except Boot, of course. He's too busy sulking over Robards getting booted."

Dover chuckled. "Thanks for this guys," he said sincerely. "Pass on my thanks to the rest of the office when you get back, okay?"

I waved him off. "Yeah, about that... Tonks doesn't start until mid-January, and I may be busy with anger management training for the next month or so."

He snorted. "You serious? I think we all got short-changed for this whole damn thing. You got anger management, Robards got fired, and I got a few weeks off... And they want me back next week!"

I cast a glance at Tonks and we shared a conspiratorial grin. Dover caught on immediately.

"Uhh... what am I missing?"

"Got a Floo call last night," I said. "Minister Cresswell wanting to thank me for the Christmas card I sent him, you know. Gave me a gift of my own. Two, actually - one to pass on to my partner. A nice bonus, if you will."

"You're fucking with me! Really?"

"He isn't," Tonks piped up. "Once word hit Cresswell's desk about Robards's poor conduct and how it nearly got you killed, he had no choice but to get rid of old Gawain and start handing out pay upgrades to the two lead Aurors who solved the Constellation Killer case."

I took over. "I made sure to tell Cresswell and Williamson all the dirty details, too. How Robards interfered with our investigations, how one brave Auror almost died..."

"Poor Auror Dover," Tonks sniffed. "He almost died too young."

"Why?" Dover asked. "I mean, I'm glad I'm getting a nice bonus and all, but I didn't really do anything."

"You've read the _Daily Prophet_, right?" I asked. "They kept things vague on how we found the Marius ritual knife and how it led back to Christian Selwyn, but it was your ingenuity that found us our biggest lead."

"The guy who cursed me?"

I nodded. "Fawcett had been Obliviated. Not a very thorough job on Selywn's part, mind you, because Fawcett kept paperwork on all of his dealings. Blackmail material, you know. So when I went back to raid the junkyard Fawcett owned, I found the paperwork about him selling the Marius knife. Selwyn bought and paid for it straight out of his vault, and Fawcett had it all written down before our dear Constellation Killer could wipe it from his memory."

"I found our killer?" Dover said in disbelief.

"Technically, you just identified him through Fawcett," Tonks said. "Harry here braved the archives room and found out that the bodies were all being buried at St Michael's cemetery. Turns out the killer actually needed the bodies, and he was using misdirection."

I took the ball and ran with it. "Easy enough to figure out he needed them when the eleventh victim got Portkey'd away."

Dover gave me a look, and Tonks explained, "The ritual was supposed to take place on the winter solstice. Something went wrong before the Aurors could get there though."

"Selwyn blew himself up," I said happily. "The ritual was faulty or something. Left a huge crater where the graveyard used to be too. I think next time it rains we're going to have a new lake... complete with dead bodies that survived the explosion. Ugh."

It wouldn't take a Muggle rocket scientist to figure out how I pinned Jensen and Fallon's work on Christian Selwyn. The man was thought to have fled the country by the time the Auror Office took the case back when our killer was known as The Sorcerer. The official guess was that he got spooked and continued his murders in seclusion, only occasionally getting in contact with his solicitor in order to get himself the ingredients needed for such a ritual.

What did I do? I started by taking down the wards around St Michael's, blowing the place up with my little potion and making sure the charred remains of the Marius knife and the wand using to brand the dead Muggles could be found in the debris. Without the wards, the Ministry could detect the magical energy my explosion caused, and a team of Aurors were dispatched. While they looked over the crater, I quickly got to work. Fallon's reality shift was gone now, so I had Loki hide the paperwork the shift tried to hide - the Marius will, the inventories and anything linking Jensen to St Michael's cemetery.

I showed up at the crater where St Michael's used to be in my official Auror capacity, acting all confused but quickly piecing it together. In the next few hours, I found out that the first ten Muggles were buried at the cemetery after some magical manipulation on their families. I planted a false memory inside of Brandon Fawcett and ingeniously stumbled upon the man's little blackmail book at the junkyard, and identified Christian Selwyn as the Constellation Killer. From there, I simply Confunded Selwyn's solicitor into thinking he had supplied the ingredients for the rebirthing ritual, and posited that Selwyn must've accidentally killed himself while attempting the ritual. In one fell swoop, I successfully framed Selwyn and hid any involvement related to Jensen and Fallon. Case closed.

For mine and Dover's invaluable service and to recompense us after Robards's poor conduct, we were getting quite the pay-raise. Telling Dover the exact amount was akin to giving a perpetually drowning man some air - his eyes rolled back in his head and he started twitching in joyous shock.

"Congrats," I said, patting him on the shoulder warmly. "We now make too much damn money."

"Speak for yourself," Dover wheezed. He stumbled back into his flat and sank into the sole cushioned chair taking up residence in his pigsty of a flat. Tonks and I just stood in the doorway, grinning.

"I think we broke him," I whispered to Tonks. "Alcohol and money and he still has some more time off work while I do my anger management." I raised my voice. "Hey Dover, did I mention that I convinced Rachel to go out with you?"

I think he may've passed out for a full minute. Upon coming to, he smiled at us both.

"Merry Christmas," he said cheerily. "I should probably head over to my folks' place for lunch... Where are you two headed?"

"Weasley's," I replied.

"Don't let me keep you two then," he said. He thumped me on the shoulder and gave Tonks a wary pat on the arm. "See you later guys."

"Same to you Dover." Tonks and I showed ourselves out of his flat and headed to the stairwell, quickly and privately preparing to Apparate to the Burrow.

"You think he'll ask Rachel out?" Tonks asked, hooking her arm in with mine.

"He might. She's a gossipy girl and he's a lazy slob. Match made in heaven."

"You've got that look in your eye," Tonks said shrewdly. "Haven't seen that since you pushed poor Neville into asking Hannah out."

"Good times."

We Apparated together, appearing on the hill overlooking the ramshackle yet comfortable Weasley household. In the distance I could spot a few figures with red hair engaging in a fierce snowball fight.

_(Echoes in my mind. Can never fully forget. The contract tries and it tries to make me forget. To block and repress and lose myself with Tonks. But I know that's what it wants. To make me complacent and eventually free itself from my control, even if it kills me. I remembered the final words of a man facing death for the second time.)_

Tonks pouted at me. "You've been hanging around Molly Weasley too long. She's made you into a little matchmaker."

"Oh yes, I had forgotten that you stopped showing at Weasley dinners lest Mrs Weasley try and set you up with the nearest garden gnome."

"It was fine when she tried to set me up with Bill - that I understood."

"She didn't want Fleur as a daughter-in-law."

_("What happens if you can't renew your contract in time?")_

"Right. Then she had that thing about Charlie still being a bachelor, of course."

"Then we all discovered he likes his women a little more scaly and dragon-like..."

"Then she totally lost it and tried to set me up with Percy!"

"I believe our new Head Auror Audrey Ravenwood would object to that unholy union."

_("What happens if your lies catch up to you, or somebody senses the reality shift like I did?")_

"Then George."

"The one-eared man and the clumsy Metamorph. Somebody think of the children."

Tonks's eyes narrowed until they dangerous slit-like. "I just can't believe she tried to set me up with Ron!"

I shuddered. "And I was right there the entire time..."

_("What happens if you die?")_

"Exactly!" Glad that I was in agreement, she pressed herself closer to me. "Should be fun though. To catch up with this lot."

"Then a little Christmas present exchange at your flat."

She nodded, her red and green hair bouncing against my side. "Sounds like a plan."

I smiled so damn hard my cheeks hurt. The war was over, and I had had enough of trying and failing to let go of it. To move on. The contract wasn't a reflection of what I had to do to survive the immediate post-war fallout. The contract was all about the happy ending I'm working towards. The contract was about walking down the hill to the Burrow, Tonks at my side. It was about hearing the happy cheers of my oldest friends greeting us rambunctiously. I'd keep renewing the contract, and I would do it with the conviction of a man fighting for his happy ending and everything that comes with. It would be worth it every time, I knew.

Contract renewals, though, could wait. I had a happy ending to work towards.

_("Harry Potter, what happens if your luck just runs out?")_

..::..-.-..::..

_The End_

..::..-.-..::..

Well, that's basically it. Kinda an ambiguous ending, but it was what I had in mind. Originally, I had planned to make Breach of Contract into a series of stories with escalating stakes, but I realised pretty early in the writing process that Twelve Signs was something special. Unique, to me, in how it came together just how I imagined it, and my months of planning worked out as I hoped. Getting something like that is rare, and it was awesome to write while knowing that I was doing pretty darn good with what I had planned out. So I realised that, while I have some cool ideas for a sequel, I might leave this story as it is and make the ending a little more ambiguous, just in case I never do a sequel.

So, this is what we got. Harry's contract wants him dead and will be making him complacent to block things off and unlucky while close to renewal. The contract will make him not think about what would happen if he was distracted or couldn't renew in time. It won't allow him to think about alternate options. But Jensen's final words have affected Harry, and maybe his mind will eventually become his own again. The sky's the limit now - will the contract continue to have a hold over Harry? Will he break free of it and get his happy ending? Even if he did break free, could he think of an alternative option and then live with himself? Could he do all this and keep his relationship with Tonks steady?

But then, there's the other side of the coin: Would the contract keep him complacent until one day, he just dies? What if, sometime close to a renewal, the contract's influence makes him break his neck by tripping and falling down the stairs he takes up to the Auror Office every day? What if Audrey Ravenwood begins to snoop into Harry Potter's affairs after she begins to get suspicious? What if Harry crosses Loki a second time, and Loki starts looking for a way to undermine him? So many roadblocks or potential problems to come Harry's way, and unless I write a sequel, the ultimate ending will be left up to the reader. Twelve Signs wasn't about Harry ultimately fighting the contract. It was about a wizard killing Muggles ritualistically, Harry dealing with his closest relationships, and him ultimately leaving the war behind, now fighting a new war in his mind against the contract he created... and he only subconsciously knows he's fighting it.

(And yes, I'm a little undecided myself on where things would go from here for me. The storyteller in me wants to have fun simply destroying Harry Potter and having reality crumble around him, while the pessimist inside of me is thinking I'd screw it all up if I tried a sequel)

So, unless I'm sequel-ing up, this is about it for this story. I hoped you all enjoyed it, and I'd like to offer a big thanks to all who reviewed, favourited, alerted or community'd this story. And a big pre-emptive thanks to all those who may do the same in the future. What's next for me? Probably something a little lighter than Breach of Contract, though hopefully no less fun to read or write. I've always wanted to do a zombie apocalypse story in the HP world...

Thanks for reading,

Matt Silver 3k.

..::..-.-..::..


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